避ける (sakeru) conjugation
to avoid (physical contact); to ward off, to avert
避ける (さける, sakeru) 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 | 避ける sakeru | 避けます sakemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 避けない sakenai | 避けません sakemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 避けた saketa | 避けました sakemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 避けなかった sakenakatta | 避けませんでした sakemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 避けて sakete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 避けている saketeiru | 避けています saketeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 避けたい saketai | 避けたいです saketaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 避けよう sakeyou | 避けましょう sakemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 避けられる sakerareru | 避けられます sakeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 避けられる sakerareru | 避けられます sakeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 避けさせる sakesaseru | 避けさせます sakesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 避けさせられる sakesaserareru | 避けさせられます sakesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 避けろ sakero | 避けてください saketekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 避けるな sakeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 避ければ sakereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 避けたら saketara | — | “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.
