Introduction

The て form of Japanese verbs is extremely important to learn en will expand what you can do in Japanese immensely. If you listen closely you will hear Japanese people use it constantly in all kind of manner and being able to use it yourself will open up all kinds of situations to you. The name て form refers to the ending in most of the verbs in the て form, namely they simply get a て (te). Here are a few of it’s uses:

• Commands and requests (Please do this)
• Present continuous (I’m studying, eating, sleeping)
• Expressing an order of actions (and then I did this)
• Describing things you did in preparation for the future 
• Saying what you want 
• Much, much more….. 

Here are some examples when it is used: 

Below you can learn how to make the て form for the three different kind of verbs you learned earlier and there are a few examples on how to use the て form. 

How to conjugate the て form

So as you probably have seen already, there are different kinds of verbs in Japanese. If this is new for you, you can read all about it in this article about Japanese verbs. The three kind of verbs get conjugated for the て-form in different ways. 

Conjugating る-verbs for the て form

る-verbs are conjugated into the て-form in the simplest way, the る in the short informal form is simply swapped out for て. 

• To turn a る-verb into the て-form, simply exchange the る in the short for て. 

So a る-verb like たべる (to eat) transforms into たべて (eat!). Not that hard right? Let’s look at some other examples. 

Conjugating う-verbs into the て-form

Conjugating う-verbs into the て-form is a somewhat more difficult exercise because within these verbs there are other groups of verbs that get conjugated differently. This is something you just have to learn. Here is the chart for every group and just like with the る-verbs, you swap the last hiragana character and add the appropriate ending. 

This is about as hard as it gets. Some of you may have noticed that there is a る in the first group. This is for the verbs that have a る-ending but are not a true る-verb, like かえる. Some examples on how to implement these rules:

You may recognize this pattern. It is the same pattern you had to learn conjugating う-verbs into the informal past tense in this lesson about verb conjugation. It’s the same pattern, but in the ending the e is replaced with an a. So when you’ve learned it you have two uses for it. 

Irregular verbs and the て-form

Conjugating verbs in earlier lesson’s you may have noticed that not all verbs conjugate regularly. For example する (to do), くる (to come) conjugate irregularly like explained in this article. The same holds for making the て-form with these verbs and also いく (to go) doesn’t have the same て-form you would expect. 

As you may have noticed before, there are a lot of irregular verbs but most of them end with する. So when you know how to conjugate する in different circumstances you actually know a lot of verbs. Some examples of the て form for irregular verbs:

Handy chart for conjugating the て-form

And in the form of a picture, so you can save it:

How to use the て-form

Now for how to use the て-form. It’s uses are almost limitless, and Japanese people use it almost every living hour to say all kind of things. That’s why it’s so important to learn. Below you can find the most common uses. 

Commands and requests

So the て-form of a verb can for example be used to give somebody an order or to politely request something from someone in combination with ください or おねがいします. Here are some examples and after I will take you step for step how. 

In the first example you take the verb おきる (to get up) and because this is a る verb, you only have to replace the る for て and then you get the て form. If you don’t know the difference between るverbs, う verbs and irregular verbs, you can recap in this article about verbs. Some more examples on the て form: 

Saying someone is doing something with the て form

The basic meaning of a verb is to do something now or in the future, but when someone is doing something at that very moment, you can make it explicit in Japanese by using the て form + いる. You know いる as the verb ‘to be’ for animate objects, so when combined with a verb you are actually saying ‘to be doing something’. 

• て form + いる means ‘doing something’ 

So for example you could be eating and when someone asks you what you are doing you say: たべている or てべています if you want to be formal. In daily speech, Japanese drop the い so you would hear たべてる or てべてます, but don’t use this in writing. Here are some more examples: