見つける (mitsukeru) conjugation
to discover, to find (v.t.)
見つける (みつける, mitsukeru) 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 | 見つける mitsukeru | 見つけます mitsukemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 見つけない mitsukenai | 見つけません mitsukemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 見つけた mitsuketa | 見つけました mitsukemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 見つけなかった mitsukenakatta | 見つけませんでした mitsukemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 見つけて mitsukete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 見つけている mitsuketeiru | 見つけています mitsuketeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 見つけたい mitsuketai | 見つけたいです mitsuketaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 見つけよう mitsukeyou | 見つけましょう mitsukemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 見つけられる mitsukerareru | 見つけられます mitsukeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 見つけられる mitsukerareru | 見つけられます mitsukeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 見つけさせる mitsukesaseru | 見つけさせます mitsukesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 見つけさせられる mitsukesaserareru | 見つけさせられます mitsukesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 見つけろ mitsukero | 見つけてください mitsuketekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 見つけるな mitsukeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 見つければ mitsukereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 見つけたら mitsuketara | — | “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.