追い付く (oitsuku) conjugation
to overtake, to catch up (with)
追い付く (おいつく, oitsuku) is a godan verb. Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば. 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 | 追い付く oitsuku | 追い付きます oitsukimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 追い付かない oitsukanai | 追い付きません oitsukimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 追い付いた oitsuita | 追い付きました oitsukimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 追い付かなかった oitsukanakatta | 追い付きませんでした oitsukimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 追い付いて oitsuite | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 追い付いている oitsuiteiru | 追い付いています oitsuiteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 追い付きたい oitsukitai | 追い付きたいです oitsukitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 追い付こう oitsukou | 追い付きましょう oitsukimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 追い付ける oitsukeru | 追い付けます oitsukemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 追い付かれる oitsukareru | 追い付かれます oitsukaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 追い付かせる oitsukaseru | 追い付かせます oitsukasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 追い付かされる oitsukasareru | 追い付かされます oitsukasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 追い付け oitsuke | 追い付いてください oitsuitekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 追い付くな oitsukuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 追い付けば oitsukeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 追い付いたら oitsuitara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.