教える (oshieru) conjugation
to teach, to inform, to instruct
教える (おしえる, oshieru) 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 | 教える oshieru | 教えます oshiemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 教えない oshienai | 教えません oshiemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 教えた oshieta | 教えました oshiemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 教えなかった oshienakatta | 教えませんでした oshiemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 教えて oshiete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 教えている oshieteiru | 教えています oshieteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 教えたい oshietai | 教えたいです oshietaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 教えよう oshieyou | 教えましょう oshiemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 教えられる oshierareru | 教えられます oshieraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 教えられる oshierareru | 教えられます oshieraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 教えさせる oshiesaseru | 教えさせます oshiesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 教えさせられる oshiesaserareru | 教えさせられます oshiesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 教えろ oshiero | 教えてください oshietekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 教えるな oshieruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 教えれば oshiereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 教えたら oshietara | — | “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.