Verb Past Tense

You’ve learned the polite present tense (masu form), now we’ll cover past tense verb forms. In Japanese, these end with ました (mashita) for affirmative statements and ませんでした (masen deshita) for negative statements:

How It Works:

1. Affirmative Past ～ました

Just change the polite verb ending ～ます into ～ました.

• Example:
  • 帰ります → 帰りました
    (kaerimasu → kaerimashita)
    = “returned home”

2. Negative Past ～ませんでした

Take the present negative ～ません and add でした to make it past negative.

• Example:
  • 勉強しません → 勉強しませんでした
    (benkyou shimasen → benkyou shimasen deshita)
    = “did not study”

📝 Notes:

• This polite form works for all verb types (ru-verbs, u-verbs, irregular verbs), because you’re only modifying the ending after you convert to the ます-form.
• You’re not dealing with plain (dictionary) forms like 書いた or 食べた here—only polite speech.
• 🗨️ Politeness levels: What you’re seeing is the formal/polite form (です/ます form). In casual speech among friends, past tense is simpler:
  • Casual affirmative: ~た (ta)
  • Casual negative: ~なかった (nakatta)
  • ➡️ But don’t worry about this right now — we’ll learn how to conjugate it properly in Lesson 9!