戦う (tatakau) conjugation
to fight, to compete, to battle
戦う (たたかう, tatakau) 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 | 戦う tatakau | 戦います tatakaimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 戦わない tatakawanai | 戦いません tatakaimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 戦った tatakatta | 戦いました tatakaimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 戦わなかった tatakawanakatta | 戦いませんでした tatakaimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 戦って tatakatte | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 戦っている tatakatteiru | 戦っています tatakatteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 戦いたい tatakaitai | 戦いたいです tatakaitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 戦おう tatakaou | 戦いましょう tatakaimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 戦える tatakaeru | 戦えます tatakaemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 戦われる tatakawareru | 戦われます tatakawaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 戦わせる tatakawaseru | 戦わせます tatakawasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 戦わされる tatakawasareru | 戦わされます tatakawasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 戦え tatakae | 戦ってください tatakattekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 戦うな tatakauna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 戦えば tatakaeba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 戦ったら tatakattara | — | “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.