Japanese Verb Conjugation Chart: All 12 Forms + Free PDF

Somewhere in every Japanese learner's notebook there is a page that looks like a crime scene: 食たべる crossed out, 食たべます squeezed in above it, 食たべて circled, 食たべなかった with three question marks. Mine was 飲のむ. I knew the word meant "to drink" for a full year before I could reliably say "I didn't drink" without pausing to do algebra in my head.

The frustrating part is that nobody shows you the whole map at once. Textbooks hand you one form per chapter, so for months every new sentence pattern feels like a brand-new verb. It is not. Japanese conjugation is one system with about a dozen moves, and once you see them side by side, the pattern practically teaches itself.

So here is the whole map: every major verb form on one page, with the rule, examples, the classic traps, and a link to a full guide for each form. There is also a free printable PDF workbook with the full chart, blank practice tables and an answer key, if you prefer to drill on paper.

Jump to: Verb groups · The complete chart · Polite forms · Plain forms · Te form · Potential, passive, causative · Conditional, volitional, imperative · By JLPT level · Common mistakes

First, the three verb groups

Japanese verbs come in three groups, and the group decides how everything else conjugates. Get the group right and every rule in this article works; get it wrong and nothing does.

• Ru-verbs (る-verbs, "ichidan"): drop る, attach the ending. Example: 食たべる (taberu, to eat)
• U-verbs (う-verbs, "godan"): the final syllable changes along the kana row. Example: 飲のむ (nomu, to drink)
• Irregulars: Japanese has two fully irregular verbs, する (suru, to do) and 来くる (kuru, to come). A few otherwise regular verbs also have individual irregular forms, like 行いく → 行いって and ある → ない; we flag each one where it appears below. Between them, する and 来くる power hundreds of compound verbs like 勉強べんきょうする, so they repay the memorization instantly.

How do you tell ru-verbs from u-verbs? If the verb does not end in る, it is a u-verb, no exceptions. If it ends in る, it is usually a ru-verb when the sound before る is "e" or "i" (食たべる, 見みる), and always a u-verb otherwise (分わかる, 作つくる). The catch: a handful of common え/い-sounding verbs are secretly u-verbs, and they happen to be words you use daily:

If 帰かえります instead of 帰かえます feels arbitrary, that is because it is. These five are worth memorizing outright.

The one chart to bookmark

Here is every major form, side by side, for one verb of each type. Grab the free PDF workbook to keep this chart (plus practice tables and an answer key) on your desk:

Notice that 来くる is unusual: its reading changes as it conjugates (くる, きます, こない), which is why the furigana in its column is worth reading closely.

Want this chart on paper next to your desk? Download the free PDF workbook: the chart, the rules on one page, blank practice tables for twelve common verbs, and an answer key. And if a chart still feels abstract, paste any verb into our free Japanese verb conjugator and it will produce every one of these forms, with furigana, for that exact verb.

Now let's walk through the forms one at a time, in the order they usually earn their keep.

Polite forms: masu and friends

The ます forms are where every classroom starts, because you can survive politely in Japan on these alone:

• Masu form: 毎朝まいあさコーヒーを飲のみます。(Maiasa koohii o nomimasu.) "I drink coffee every morning." Polite present and future in one form; Japanese does not separate them.
• Mashita: 昨日きのう映画えいがを見みました。(Kinou eiga o mimashita.) "I watched a movie yesterday." Polite past.
• Masen: お酒さけを飲のみません。(Osake o nomimasen.) "I don't drink alcohol." Polite negative.
• Masen deshita: 何なにも買かいませんでした。(Nani mo kaimasen deshita.) "I didn't buy anything." Polite past negative.
• Mashou: 一緒いっしょに勉強べんきょうしましょう。(Issho ni benkyou shimashou.) "Let's study together." The polite let's-do-it form, and yes, it is where this site got its name.

The formation rule for u-verbs: shift the last syllable to its い row, then attach ます. So 飲のむ becomes 飲のみ + ます, 書かく becomes 書かき + ます, 話はなす becomes 話はなし + ます. Ru-verbs just drop る: 食たべる becomes 食たべ + ます. Once you have the masu stem (the part before ます), you also get other patterns free: stem + たい gives "want to" (see our full tai form guide), stem + ながら gives "while doing".

Plain forms: how people actually talk

Friends, family, anime, and your own inner monologue all run on plain forms. They also power most grammar patterns later (relative clauses, と思おもう, quoted speech), so they are not optional and they are not "casual slang". They are half the language.

• Dictionary form: 飲のむ. The "name" of the verb, and simultaneously the plain present tense. 明日あした行いく。"I'm going tomorrow."
• Ta form: もう食たべた？(Mou tabeta?) "Did you eat already?" Plain past. U-verbs have sound changes here (む → んだ), and they are identical to the te form's sound changes: learn one, get the other free.
• Nai form: 肉にくを食たべない。(Niku o tabenai.) "I don't eat meat." U-verbs shift to the あ row before ない, with one spelling quirk: verbs ending in う take わ, so 買かう becomes 買かわない, not 買かあない.
• Nakatta: 昨日きのうは飲のまなかった。(Kinou wa nomanakatta.) "I didn't drink yesterday." Take the nai form, swap ない for なかった. This is the one that used to defeat me, and the fix was realizing it is just nai form plus a past-tense tail.

Two plain-form facts worth engraving early. First, ある (to exist) has an irregular negative: it is simply ない, not あらない. Second, switching between plain and polite is a social register decision, not a grammar decision; our plain form vs masu form guide covers when each is the right call, and our formal vs casual speech lesson goes deeper on the politeness ladder.

The te form: the busiest syllable in Japanese

The te form does not translate to anything by itself, which is exactly why it is everywhere. For u-verbs the endings group like this:

Ru-verbs, as usual, take the easy road: 食たべる → 食たべて. The famous exception lives here: 行いく (iku, to go) becomes 行いって, not 行いいて.

What makes te form worth the drilling is everything that stacks on top of it:

• て + ください: 待まってください。"Please wait." The standard polite request.
• て + いる: 今いま、雨あめが降ふっている。"It's raining right now." Ongoing actions and states.
• て + もいい: 写真しゃしんを撮とってもいいですか。"May I take a photo?" Asking permission.
• て + はいけない: ここで泳およいではいけません。"You must not swim here." Prohibition.
• Linking actions: 起おきて、コーヒーを飲のんで、出でかけた。"I woke up, drank coffee, and went out." One te form per action, tense carried by the final verb. There is also a whole family of te form conjunctions built on the same base.

If you drill only one conjugation this month, drill this one.

Potential, passive and causative forms

These three unlock adult sentences, and they cluster together because they all attach to the same slots:

• Potential: 日本語にほんごが話はなせます。(Nihongo ga hanasemasu.) "I can speak Japanese." U-verbs shift to the え row (話はなす → 話はなせる); ru-verbs use られる. On particles: textbooks traditionally teach 日本語にほんごが話はなせる, and that is the safe choice for exams, though 日本語にほんごを話はなせる is also common in modern Japanese. For "can do", everyday Japanese prefers dekimasu: 料理りょうりができます。"I can cook."
• Passive: 先生せんせいに褒ほめられた。(Sensei ni homerareta.) "I was praised by my teacher." Beyond the textbook passive, Japanese has the famous "suffering passive" (雨あめに降ふられた, "I got rained on"), and news Japanese uses passives constantly as polite distance. If you read our daily news in easy Japanese, you will meet this form in the first paragraph.
• Causative: 子こどもに野菜やさいを食たべさせる。(Kodomo ni yasai o tabesaseru.) "I make my child eat vegetables." The same form also means "let": 犬いぬを走はしらせた can be "I made the dog run" or "I let the dog run". Context decides, which surprises everyone at first. Stack causative and passive together and you get causative-passive (食たべさせられた, "I was made to eat"), the final boss of N4 grammar.

The classic trap: for ru-verbs, potential and passive look identical. 食たべられる is both "can eat" and "is eaten". Real Japanese resolves this by context, and spoken Japanese increasingly drops the ら for potential (食たべれる, so-called ra-nuki), though that is still informal and JLPT answers expect the full られる.

Conditional, volitional and imperative forms

The "if", "let's", and "do it" moves:

• Ba form: 安やすければ、買かいます。(Yasukereba, kaimasu.) "If it's cheap, I'll buy it." One of several Japanese conditionals, and the most pattern-friendly one: え row + ば for u-verbs, れば for ru-verbs. It also appears in the extremely useful hou ga ii advice pattern.
• Volitional: 行いこう！(Ikou!) "Let's go!" The plain counterpart of ましょう. It also builds "thinking of doing" with と思おもう: 日本にほんに行いこうと思おもっています。"I'm thinking of going to Japan."
• Imperative: 飲のめ！(Nome!) "Drink!" Blunt enough that you will hear it mostly from drill sergeants, sports coaches, and manga villains. Real-life requests use te form + ください instead, and signage uses the gentler な prohibitive (触さわるな, "do not touch").

Which forms you actually need, by level

You do not need all twelve at once. This is roughly how the JLPT (and real life) staggers them:

Our JLPT N5 grammar list covers the first row pattern by pattern if you want the full beginner map, and the free PDF workbook's practice tables follow the same N5-first order.

The seven mistakes everyone makes

1. Conjugating 帰かえる like a ru-verb. It is 帰かえって, never 帰きて. Same for 入はいる, 走はしる, 知しる, 切きる.
2. Forgetting 行いく's te form. 行いって, not 行いいて.
3. 買かう → 買かあない. The う row negates with わ: 買かわない, 会あわない, 使つかわない.
4. Using を with potential verbs on the JLPT. 日本語にほんごが話はなせる is the textbook-safe version; 日本語にほんごを話はなせる is common in real usage but exams expect が.
5. Treating 食たべられる as only "can eat". It is also the passive. Read the sentence around it.
6. Using the imperative for requests. 座すわれ to a stranger is a good way to end a conversation. 座すわってください is the form you want.
7. Mixing formality carelessly. In formal writing or structured speech, 飲のみませんでした is the safest polite past negative. 飲のまなかったです is also common in everyday polite conversation, so you will hear both; just know which register you are writing for, and pick the ません set on exams.

How to actually learn all this

Do not memorize the chart top to bottom. What works:

1. Learn the rules per group, not per verb. Once you know む → んで, every む verb you ever meet is solved. You will encounter thousands of verbs, but they follow a small number of recurring ending patterns.
2. Drill one form across many verbs, not many forms on one verb. Our grammar quiz has per-form drills for exactly this, and the PDF workbook's blank tables are built the same way.
3. Read the forms in the wild. Even short graded texts surface te, ta, and nai forms constantly; our reading practice passages mark every sentence with furigana and list the grammar patterns each passage is built on.
4. Check yourself against a conjugator, not your memory. Guess first, then verify with the verb conjugator. The guessing is where the learning happens.
5. Say them out loud. Conjugation is a motor skill as much as a memory skill. 飲のむ、飲のみます、飲のんで、飲のんだ、飲のまない has a rhythm; your mouth learns it faster than your eyes do.

The day the chart stops being a chart and starts being reflexes is closer than it looks. For most learners it is a few weeks of daily contact, not months.

And if you want those daily reps built for you: the Benkyou Mashou app drills conjugation with spaced repetition, corrects your spoken Japanese in real conversations, and tracks which forms still trip you up. Try Benkyou Mashou on the App Store and let 飲のみませんでした become something you say, not something you solve.