仕える (tsukaeru) conjugation
to serve, to work for
仕える (つかえる, tsukaeru) 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 | 仕える tsukaeru | 仕えます tsukaemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 仕えない tsukaenai | 仕えません tsukaemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 仕えた tsukaeta | 仕えました tsukaemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 仕えなかった tsukaenakatta | 仕えませんでした tsukaemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 仕えて tsukaete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 仕えている tsukaeteiru | 仕えています tsukaeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 仕えたい tsukaetai | 仕えたいです tsukaetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 仕えよう tsukaeyou | 仕えましょう tsukaemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 仕えられる tsukaerareru | 仕えられます tsukaeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 仕えられる tsukaerareru | 仕えられます tsukaeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 仕えさせる tsukaesaseru | 仕えさせます tsukaesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 仕えさせられる tsukaesaserareru | 仕えさせられます tsukaesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 仕えろ tsukaero | 仕えてください tsukaetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 仕えるな tsukaeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 仕えれば tsukaereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 仕えたら tsukaetara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
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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.