似る (niru) conjugation
to resemble, to be similar
似る (にる, niru) 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 | 似る niru | 似ます nimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 似ない ninai | 似ません nimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 似た nita | 似ました nimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 似なかった ninakatta | 似ませんでした nimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 似て nite | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 似ている niteiru | 似ています niteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 似たい nitai | 似たいです nitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 似よう niyou | 似ましょう nimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 似られる nirareru | 似られます niraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 似られる nirareru | 似られます niraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 似させる nisaseru | 似させます nisasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 似させられる nisaserareru | 似させられます nisaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 似ろ niro | 似てください nitekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 似るな niruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 似れば nireba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 似たら nitara | — | “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.