救う (sukuu) conjugation
to rescue from, to help out of
救う (すくう, sukuu) 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 | 救う sukuu | 救います sukuimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 救わない sukuwanai | 救いません sukuimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 救った sukutta | 救いました sukuimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 救わなかった sukuwanakatta | 救いませんでした sukuimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 救って sukutte | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 救っている sukutteiru | 救っています sukutteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 救いたい sukuitai | 救いたいです sukuitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 救おう sukuou | 救いましょう sukuimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 救える sukueru | 救えます sukuemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 救われる sukuwareru | 救われます sukuwaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 救わせる sukuwaseru | 救わせます sukuwasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 救わされる sukuwasareru | 救わされます sukuwasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 救え sukue | 救ってください sukuttekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 救うな sukuuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 救えば sukueba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 救ったら sukuttara | — | “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.