The Ultimate Guide to Mastering the Te-Form in Japanese Grammar

One of the most fundamental building blocks in Japanese grammar is the Te-Form (て form).

This essential grammar point acts like a bridge, allowing you to link verbs and other parts of speech to create logical and flowing sentences.

Table of Contents:

• The Function of the て-form

• How to Conjugate into て-form

  • How to Conjugate Verbs to て form

    • Godan Verb て Form Examples

    • Ichidan Verb て Form Examples

    • Exception Verb て Form Examples

  • How to Conjugate Adjectives into て form

  • How to Conjugate Noun + Copula into て form

• How to use past tense (た form)

• How to use the て form

The Function of the て-form

The most basic purpose of the Te-Form (て form) is to connect two clauses together and create a singular compound sentence.

To put it into English, it's like taking the 2 sentences "I went to the supermarket" and "I bought bread" and sticking them together to become the compound sentence, "I went to the supermarket and bought bread".

How to Conjugate into て-form

The て form can be attached to all 3 possible sentence enders in Japanese. That is to say: Verbs, Adjectives, and Noun + Copula. As with all things in Japanese that conjugate, the only thing that ever changes is the last kana.

How to Conjugate Verbs to て form

First, remember that there are 3 types of verbs. Godan, Ichidan, and Exception verbs.

Godan Verbs 五段	う　つ　る → って ぬ　ぶ　む → んで く → いてぐ → いで す → して
Ichidan Verbs 一段	る → て
Exception Verbs 不規則	する → して来る → 来て行く → 行って

Godan Verb て Form Examples

There are a few rules for what to do when with Godan verbs as different verb endings lead to different results. Here is an example using each possible Godan verb ending:

買う	買って
持つ	持って
走る	走って
死ぬ	死んで
遊ぶ	遊んで
飲む	飲んで
歩く	歩いて
泳ぐ	泳いで
話す	話して

Ichidan Verb て Form Examples

Ichidan verbs, as always, only have 1 possible conjugation, and that is to drop the る.

食べる	食べて
着る	着て
見る	見て

Exception Verb て Form Examples

Alongside the usual exception verbs of する and 来る, there are also several other exception verbs like 行く. It should be mentioned that these 3 are not the only exception verbs for the て form, but 行く is simply the most common one.

You can find more exception verbs in the worksheet for this article.

する	して
来る	来て
行く	行って

How to Conjugate Adjectives into て form

For adjectives (形容詞), we simply change the い into くて.

寒い	寒くて
暑い	暑くて
可愛い	可愛くて

How to Conjugate Noun + Copula into て form

The "copula" in Japanese is だ or です, to switch this into て form, we simply change it into で. Remember that "na-adjectives" don't really exist and are just Noun + Copula, meaning the "na" in a "na-adjective" is in reality just the connective form (連用形・い-stem) of だ.

だ	で
です	で

How to use past tense (た form)

A quick cheat code is that, for verbs, the て form and た form are identical, except the て itself is swapped for a た. Keep in mind this ONLY applies to verbs.

買う	買った
持つ	持った
走る	走った
死ぬ	死んだ
遊ぶ	遊んだ
飲む	飲んだ
歩く	歩いた
泳ぐ	泳いだ
話す	話した

For adjectives and the copula, the rule doesn't apply. For adjectives, you swap the い into かった, and for the copula, you follow the following instructions.

だ	だった
です	でした

How to use the て form

The most basic use of the て form is to combine multiple logical clauses into a singular compound sentence. Let's try this with the following 2 sentences.

スーパーに行った。

Went to the supermarket

パンを買った。

Bought bread.

To connect the first clause to the second one and form a single compound sentence, we must change the engine of the first sentence into the て form. In this case, the engine of the first sentence is the verb 行く in its past tense.

行く　→　行って

スーパーに行って、パンを買った。

Went to the supermarket, bought bread.

This is an example of how we can connect a verb engine sentence into another clause. We can continue to do this indefinitely by linking more clauses. For example:

買う　→　買って

スーパーに行って、パンを買って、家に戻った。

Went to the supermarket, bought bread, returned home.

Or

戻る　→　戻って

スーパーに行って、パンを買って、家に戻って、寝た。

Went to the supermarket, bought bread, returned home, slept.

This way of using the て form is the same across all sentence enders. Here are some examples of adjectives using the て form to form compound sentences:

寒い　→　寒くて

寒くて、コートを着た。

Was cold, wore a coat.

ない　→　なくて

最近寝れなくて、体がだるい。

Recently, not able to sleep, body is sluggish.

眠い　→　眠くて

眠くて、勉強ができなかった。

Was sleepy, couldn't study.

Once we can understand the basic functions of て form for adjectives, we can also see some expanded usages like this:

妹は可愛くて、優しくて、明るくて、いい子だ。

As for little sister, is cute, is kind, is bright, is a good child.

Finally, let's take a look at some examples of the て form working for the Noun + Copula type sentences. To start, let's take a look at these 3 sample sentences:

花が綺麗だ。

Flower is pretty.

色も鮮やかだ。

As for color, is vibrant too.

香りもとてもいい。

As for smell, is very good too.

We can link all three of these sentences together like so:

花が綺麗で、色も鮮やかで、香りもとてもいい。

Flower is pretty, as for color, is vibrant too, as for smell, is very good too.

This was done simply by switching the copula だ into the て form, で.

Remember that 綺麗 and 鮮やか are not "na adjectives" as they do not exist, they are simply "nominals", which are things that act exactly like nouns and can be treated as nouns.

This covers all the basic usages of the て form.

Hope you found this guide useful!