住む (sumu) conjugation
to reside, to live in
住む (すむ, sumu) 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 | 住む sumu | 住みます sumimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 住まない sumanai | 住みません sumimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 住んだ sunda | 住みました sumimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 住まなかった sumanakatta | 住みませんでした sumimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 住んで sunde | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 住んでいる sundeiru | 住んでいます sundeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 住みたい sumitai | 住みたいです sumitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 住もう sumou | 住みましょう sumimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 住める sumeru | 住めます sumemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 住まれる sumareru | 住まれます sumaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 住ませる sumaseru | 住ませます sumasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 住まされる sumasareru | 住まされます sumasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 住め sume | 住んでください sundekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 住むな sumuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 住めば sumeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 住んだら sundara | — | “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.