建てる (tateru) conjugation
to build
建てる (たてる, tateru) 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 | 建てる tateru | 建てます tatemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 建てない tatenai | 建てません tatemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 建てた tateta | 建てました tatemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 建てなかった tatenakatta | 建てませんでした tatemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 建てて tatete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 建てている tateteiru | 建てています tateteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 建てたい tatetai | 建てたいです tatetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 建てよう tateyou | 建てましょう tatemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 建てられる taterareru | 建てられます tateraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 建てられる taterareru | 建てられます tateraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 建てさせる tatesaseru | 建てさせます tatesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 建てさせられる tatesaserareru | 建てさせられます tatesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 建てろ tatero | 建ててください tatetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 建てるな tateruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 建てれば tatereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 建てたら tatetara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
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.