It's All in the Past: Conjugating Past Tense Japanese Verbs

Want to learn to describe past events in Japanese? Here, Ann Arbor, MI teacher Elaina R. shares some helpful hints to conjugate past tense Japanese verbs…

Unfortunately, past tense verbs are not as easy to conjugate as present tense and future tense Japanese verbs. Past tense Japanese verbs are still surprisingly simple to conjugate, however, compared with verbs in many European languages.

By breaking down the different verb endings and learning some memorization tips, you can give yourself a jump start to describe the past in Japanese.

Using Past Tense in Japanese

Japanese past tense is much like English past tense. It’s used to describe events that have already happened.  For example, “I saw a film,” is 映画を見た in informal past tense.

The Japanese past tense can also be used as the equivalent to the past perfect tense in English. “I have seen that film” is “あの映画を見た” in informal past tense; the only thing I had to add was the word “that.”

Past Informal Japanese Verb Endings

Past informal Japanese verb endings for consonant-stem verbs are kind of tricky, so let’s start with vowel-stem verbs and irregular verbs.

Verb Type	Conjugation	Example
Vowel-Stem Verbs	Stem+ta	miru (みる) → mita (みた)
kuru (くる) and suru (する)	Stem+ita	kuru (くる) → kita (きた) suru (する) →   shita (した)

To conjugate consonant-stem verbs into informal past tense verbs, we have to sort them into five categories.

Verb Ending	Conjugation	Example
-ku	Stem+ita	naku (なく) → naita (ないた) – cry/cried
-gu	Stem+ida	oyogu (およぐ) → oyoida (およいだ) – swim/swam
-su	Stem+shita	kaisu (かいす) → kaishita (かいした) – give back/gave back
-nu, -bu, mu	Stem+nda	tobu (とぶ) → tonda (とんだ) – fly/flew
-u, -tsu, -ru	Stem+tta	utsuru (うつる) → utsutta (うつった) – reflect/reflected

This may seem like a lot to remember, but here are some helpful hints:

• Try memorizing just one conjugation in each category. If you work backwards, you can figure out the rule from the verb. For instance, if you know that the past tense of nomu (to drink) is nonda (drank), you can infer that the –mu stem changes to –nda in the past tense.
• Utsuru is a Japanese word with several meanings, including “to reflect” and “to transfer” (a disease). If you remember this word, you can remember that –u, -tsu, and –ru verb endings are all in the same group.

Formal Past Tense Japanese Verbs

After all that work, you may be relieved that formal past tense is a breeze. Instead of –masu, the present-tense ending, past tense formal uses the verb ending –mashita.

Verb Type	Conjugation	Example
Vowel-Stem Verbs	Stem+mashita	mimashita (みました)
Consonant-Stem Verbs	Stem+i+mashita	arukimashita (あるきます)
kuru (くる) and suru (する)	Stem+imashita	kimashita (きました) shimasu (しました)

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Practicing Past Tense in Japanese

As with everything, practice makes perfect. With past tense Japanese verbs, your Japanese teacher may recommend mastering the easier formal verb endings first before moving on to the more complex consonant-stem informal verb endings.

With some elbow grease and the right teacher, it wont take long to learn to talk about bygones in Japanese.

Want to learn more Japanese grammar? Find a Japanese teacher near you! 

Photo by sswj