尋ねる (tazuneru) conjugation
to inquire (same as 質問する)
尋ねる (たずねる, tazuneru) 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 | 尋ねる tazuneru | 尋ねます tazunemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 尋ねない tazunenai | 尋ねません tazunemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 尋ねた tazuneta | 尋ねました tazunemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 尋ねなかった tazunenakatta | 尋ねませんでした tazunemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 尋ねて tazunete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 尋ねている tazuneteiru | 尋ねています tazuneteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 尋ねたい tazunetai | 尋ねたいです tazunetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 尋ねよう tazuneyou | 尋ねましょう tazunemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 尋ねられる tazunerareru | 尋ねられます tazuneraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 尋ねられる tazunerareru | 尋ねられます tazuneraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 尋ねさせる tazunesaseru | 尋ねさせます tazunesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 尋ねさせられる tazunesaserareru | 尋ねさせられます tazunesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 尋ねろ tazunero | 尋ねてください tazunetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 尋ねるな tazuneruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 尋ねれば tazunereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 尋ねたら tazunetara | — | “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.
