溺れる (oboreru) conjugation
to be drowned, to indulge in
溺れる (おぼれる, oboreru) 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 | 溺れる oboreru | 溺れます oboremasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 溺れない oborenai | 溺れません oboremasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 溺れた oboreta | 溺れました oboremashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 溺れなかった oborenakatta | 溺れませんでした oboremasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 溺れて oborete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 溺れている oboreteiru | 溺れています oboreteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 溺れたい oboretai | 溺れたいです oboretaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 溺れよう oboreyou | 溺れましょう oboremashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 溺れられる oborerareru | 溺れられます oboreraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 溺れられる oborerareru | 溺れられます oboreraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 溺れさせる oboresaseru | 溺れさせます oboresasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 溺れさせられる oboresaserareru | 溺れさせられます oboresaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 溺れろ oborero | 溺れてください oboretekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 溺れるな oboreruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 溺れれば oborereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 溺れたら oboretara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
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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.