捕まえる (tsukamaeru) conjugation
to catch, to arrest
捕まえる (つかまえる, tsukamaeru) 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 | 捕まえる tsukamaeru | 捕まえます tsukamaemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 捕まえない tsukamaenai | 捕まえません tsukamaemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 捕まえた tsukamaeta | 捕まえました tsukamaemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 捕まえなかった tsukamaenakatta | 捕まえませんでした tsukamaemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 捕まえて tsukamaete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 捕まえている tsukamaeteiru | 捕まえています tsukamaeteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 捕まえたい tsukamaetai | 捕まえたいです tsukamaetaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 捕まえよう tsukamaeyou | 捕まえましょう tsukamaemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 捕まえられる tsukamaerareru | 捕まえられます tsukamaeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 捕まえられる tsukamaerareru | 捕まえられます tsukamaeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 捕まえさせる tsukamaesaseru | 捕まえさせます tsukamaesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 捕まえさせられる tsukamaesaserareru | 捕まえさせられます tsukamaesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 捕まえろ tsukamaero | 捕まえてください tsukamaetekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 捕まえるな tsukamaeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 捕まえれば tsukamaereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 捕まえたら tsukamaetara | — | “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.
