ねむたい

i-adjective

sleepy

informalspokenhealth

Conjugation

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	ねむたい	ねむたくない
Past	ねむたかった	ねむたくなかった
て form	ねむたくて	ねむたくなくて
Adverbial	ねむたく	—
Conditional ば	ねむたければ	ねむたくなければ
Conditional たら	ねむたかったら	ねむたくなかったら

1. sleepy, drowsy

Feeling drowsy and wanting to sleep. A variant of 眠(ねむ)い with the same meaning.

ねむたい目(め)をこする。

Rub one's sleepy eyes.

昨日(きのう)あまり寝(ね)なかったから、すごくねむたい。

I didn't sleep much yesterday, so I'm really sleepy.

午後(ごご)の授業(じゅぎょう)はいつもねむたくなる。

I always get sleepy during afternoon classes.

Forms

Adverbial: ねむたく
Negative: ねむたくない
Past: ねむたかった

Similar words

眠(ねむ)い: sleepy (standard form)
ねむたい: sleepy (variant, slightly more colloquial)

Both have the same meaning. 眠(ねむ)い is the standard dictionary form and more widely used. ねむたい is heard more in casual speech and in certain regional dialects (especially Kansai).

Writing

Can be written as 眠(ねむ)たい. The kanji form 眠(ねむ) is the same as in 眠(ねむ)い.

Related Words

Synonym: 眠(ねむ)い (sleepy (standard))

general

Added 2026.2.9 13:11 · Revised 2026.9.2 13:01

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