空く (suku) conjugation
to be empty (in reference to people), to be less crowded
空く (すく, suku) is a godan verb. Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば. 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 | 空く suku | 空きます sukimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 空かない sukanai | 空きません sukimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 空いた suita | 空きました sukimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 空かなかった sukanakatta | 空きませんでした sukimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 空いて suite | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 空いている suiteiru | 空いています suiteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 空きたい sukitai | 空きたいです sukitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 空こう sukou | 空きましょう sukimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 空ける sukeru | 空けます sukemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 空かれる sukareru | 空かれます sukaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 空かせる sukaseru | 空かせます sukasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 空かされる sukasareru | 空かされます sukasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 空け suke | 空いてください suitekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 空くな sukuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 空けば sukeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 空いたら suitara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.