調べる (shiraberu) conjugation
to check; to look up; to inquire; to search
調べる (しらべる, shiraberu) 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 | 調べる shiraberu | 調べます shirabemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 調べない shirabenai | 調べません shirabemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 調べた shirabeta | 調べました shirabemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 調べなかった shirabenakatta | 調べませんでした shirabemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 調べて shirabete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 調べている shirabeteiru | 調べています shirabeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 調べたい shirabetai | 調べたいです shirabetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 調べよう shirabeyou | 調べましょう shirabemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 調べられる shiraberareru | 調べられます shiraberaremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 調べられる shiraberareru | 調べられます shiraberaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 調べさせる shirabesaseru | 調べさせます shirabesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 調べさせられる shirabesaserareru | 調べさせられます shirabesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 調べろ shirabero | 調べてください shirabetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 調べるな shiraberuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 調べれば shirabereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 調べたら shirabetara | — | “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.