恐れる (osoreru) conjugation
to fear, to be afraid of
恐れる (おそれる, osoreru) 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 | 恐れる osoreru | 恐れます osoremasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 恐れない osorenai | 恐れません osoremasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 恐れた osoreta | 恐れました osoremashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 恐れなかった osorenakatta | 恐れませんでした osoremasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 恐れて osorete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 恐れている osoreteiru | 恐れています osoreteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 恐れたい osoretai | 恐れたいです osoretaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 恐れよう osoreyou | 恐れましょう osoremashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 恐れられる osorerareru | 恐れられます osoreraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 恐れられる osorerareru | 恐れられます osoreraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 恐れさせる osoresaseru | 恐れさせます osoresasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 恐れさせられる osoresaserareru | 恐れさせられます osoresaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 恐れろ osorero | 恐れてください osoretekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 恐れるな osoreruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 恐れれば osorereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 恐れたら osoretara | — | “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.
