Conjugation rules of Japanese verbs are easy to understand. However it requires you to study the classification of Japanese verbs. Showing a respectful attitude when speaking Japanese might be a little bit more challenging. In the following article I will show you how to conjugate verbs into their past tense form with respect to the groups they belong to. Moreover, since Japanese language uses different forms of conjugation, I will show you how to create honorific phrases.
The ta-form of a Japanese verb is basically is its past tense form as well
If we compare Japanese with English, we find that Japanese does not have as many tenses as English. Obliviously simple past tense is widely used, however there is no differentiation between past tenses. This makes English a very difficult language for Japanese people to study. Past perfect and simple past for example can be expressed using the same conjugation rules.
First of all let's review the classification of Japanese verbs.
I have talked about the importance of the groups when I explained the so called te-form(て形). The following grammatical structure is called the ta-form(た形). You might have realized the similarity in their names. And yes! My good news is that the te-form and the ta-form are almost the same. For those, who would like to learn fast, I can recommend to learn the te-form(て形) first and then just substitute て with た in the rules to get the ta-form(た形).
To make it simple, the ta-form of a Japanese verb is basically is its past tense form as well. However it's better to remember it as "the ta-form" instead of past tense form, because later on, when I explain advanced Japanese grammatical structures I will refer to the ta-form.
For example:
For example:
Let's create a few sentences using the past form of Japanese verbs. (Group numbers are in parentheses)
These sentences can be used when talking to your friends or relatives. However they lack any form of politeness. As such I discourage you to use the verbs in there simple form when talking to your superior or a stranger.
I will briefly show you how to use polite past forms of Japanese verbs. As I have already explained before, if you would like to make your speech polite you will need to use the form so called "masu-form". If you are not familiar with that, I highly recommend you to check out my previous article.
And now let's see a few examples (Group numbers are in parentheses):
Finally here are some sentences that could be used when you are talking to a stranger or superior: