支える (sasaeru) conjugation
support, hold, sustain
支える (ささえる, sasaeru) 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 | 支える sasaeru | 支えます sasaemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 支えない sasaenai | 支えません sasaemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 支えた sasaeta | 支えました sasaemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 支えなかった sasaenakatta | 支えませんでした sasaemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 支えて sasaete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 支えている sasaeteiru | 支えています sasaeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 支えたい sasaetai | 支えたいです sasaetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 支えよう sasaeyou | 支えましょう sasaemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 支えられる sasaerareru | 支えられます sasaeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 支えられる sasaerareru | 支えられます sasaeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 支えさせる sasaesaseru | 支えさせます sasaesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 支えさせられる sasaesaserareru | 支えさせられます sasaesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 支えろ sasaero | 支えてください sasaetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 支えるな sasaeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 支えれば sasaereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 支えたら sasaetara | — | “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.