覚える (oboeru) conjugation
to learn, to commit to memory, to remember, to memorize
覚える (おぼえる, oboeru) 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 | 覚える oboeru | 覚えます oboemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 覚えない oboenai | 覚えません oboemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 覚えた oboeta | 覚えました oboemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 覚えなかった oboenakatta | 覚えませんでした oboemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 覚えて oboete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 覚えている oboeteiru | 覚えています oboeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 覚えたい oboetai | 覚えたいです oboetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 覚えよう oboeyou | 覚えましょう oboemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 覚えられる oboerareru | 覚えられます oboeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 覚えられる oboerareru | 覚えられます oboeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 覚えさせる oboesaseru | 覚えさせます oboesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 覚えさせられる oboesaserareru | 覚えさせられます oboesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 覚えろ oboero | 覚えてください oboetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 覚えるな oboeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 覚えれば oboereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 覚えたら oboetara | — | “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.