負ける (makeru) conjugation
to lose (a game) (v.i.), to be defeated
負ける (まける, makeru) is an ichidan verb. Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes. Every form below is tappable — hear it, then say it back.
Conjugation table
| Form | Plain (casual) | Polite (~ます) | When you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary / plain | 負ける makeru | 負けます makemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 負けない makenai | 負けません makemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 負けた maketa | 負けました makemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 負けなかった makenakatta | 負けませんでした makemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 負けて makete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 負けている maketeiru | 負けています maketeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 負けたい maketai | 負けたいです maketaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 負けよう makeyou | 負けましょう makemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 負けられる makerareru | 負けられます makeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 負けられる makerareru | 負けられます makeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 負けさせる makesaseru | 負けさせます makesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 負けさせられる makesaserareru | 負けさせられます makesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 負けろ makero | 負けてください maketekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 負けるな makeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 負ければ makereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 負けたら maketara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.