冴える (saeru) conjugation
to be clear, to be bright, to be skillful
冴える (さえる, saeru) 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 | 冴える saeru | 冴えます saemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 冴えない saenai | 冴えません saemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 冴えた saeta | 冴えました saemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 冴えなかった saenakatta | 冴えませんでした saemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 冴えて saete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 冴えている saeteiru | 冴えています saeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 冴えたい saetai | 冴えたいです saetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 冴えよう saeyou | 冴えましょう saemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 冴えられる saerareru | 冴えられます saeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 冴えられる saerareru | 冴えられます saeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 冴えさせる saesaseru | 冴えさせます saesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 冴えさせられる saesaserareru | 冴えさせられます saesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 冴えろ saero | 冴えてください saetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 冴えるな saeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 冴えれば saereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 冴えたら saetara | — | “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.
