寝る (neru) conjugation
to sleep; to go to sleep; to go to bed
寝る (ねる, neru) 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 | 寝る neru | 寝ます nemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 寝ない nenai | 寝ません nemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 寝た neta | 寝ました nemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 寝なかった nenakatta | 寝ませんでした nemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 寝て nete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 寝ている neteiru | 寝ています neteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 寝たい netai | 寝たいです netaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 寝よう neyou | 寝ましょう nemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 寝られる nerareru | 寝られます neraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 寝られる nerareru | 寝られます neraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 寝させる nesaseru | 寝させます nesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 寝させられる nesaserareru | 寝させられます nesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 寝ろ nero | 寝てください netekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 寝るな neruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 寝れば nereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 寝たら netara | — | “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.