優れる (sugureru) conjugation
to surpass, to outstrip, to excel
優れる (すぐれる, sugureru) 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 | 優れる sugureru | 優れます suguremasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 優れない sugurenai | 優れません suguremasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 優れた sugureta | 優れました suguremashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 優れなかった sugurenakatta | 優れませんでした suguremasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 優れて sugurete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 優れている sugureteiru | 優れています sugureteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 優れたい suguretai | 優れたいです suguretaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 優れよう sugureyou | 優れましょう suguremashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 優れられる sugurerareru | 優れられます sugureraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 優れられる sugurerareru | 優れられます sugureraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 優れさせる suguresaseru | 優れさせます suguresasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 優れさせられる suguresaserareru | 優れさせられます suguresaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 優れろ sugurero | 優れてください suguretekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 優れるな sugureruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 優れれば sugurereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 優れたら suguretara | — | “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.