勤める (tsutomeru) conjugation
to work (for)
勤める (つとめる, tsutomeru) 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 | 勤める tsutomeru | 勤めます tsutomemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 勤めない tsutomenai | 勤めません tsutomemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 勤めた tsutometa | 勤めました tsutomemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 勤めなかった tsutomenakatta | 勤めませんでした tsutomemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 勤めて tsutomete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 勤めている tsutometeiru | 勤めています tsutometeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 勤めたい tsutometai | 勤めたいです tsutometaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 勤めよう tsutomeyou | 勤めましょう tsutomemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 勤められる tsutomerareru | 勤められます tsutomeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 勤められる tsutomerareru | 勤められます tsutomeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 勤めさせる tsutomesaseru | 勤めさせます tsutomesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 勤めさせられる tsutomesaserareru | 勤めさせられます tsutomesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 勤めろ tsutomero | 勤めてください tsutometekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 勤めるな tsutomeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 勤めれば tsutomereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 勤めたら tsutometara | — | “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.