舞う (mau) conjugation
to dance, to flutter about, to revolve
舞う (まう, mau) is a godan verb. Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば. 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 | 舞う mau | 舞います maimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 舞わない mawanai | 舞いません maimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 舞った matta | 舞いました maimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 舞わなかった mawanakatta | 舞いませんでした maimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 舞って matte | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 舞っている matteiru | 舞っています matteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 舞いたい maitai | 舞いたいです maitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 舞おう maou | 舞いましょう maimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 舞える maeru | 舞えます maemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 舞われる mawareru | 舞われます mawaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 舞わせる mawaseru | 舞わせます mawasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 舞わされる mawasareru | 舞わされます mawasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 舞え mae | 舞ってください mattekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 舞うな mauna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 舞えば maeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 舞ったら mattara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.