じゃなかったWas not, Wasn't

Structure

［な］Adjective + では⁽¹⁾ + なかった
Noun + では⁽¹⁾ + なかった

⁽¹⁾じゃ

Details

Part of Speech
Verb
Word Type
Auxiliary Verb
Register
Standard

About じゃなかった

じゃなかった is the casual form of ではなかった. では itself is regularly contracted to じゃ in Japanese, so is worth remembering as its own structure. じゃなかった (casual), or ではなかった (semi-polite) are the structures used for creating the negative-past form of nouns and な-Adjectives.

Either じゃなかった or ではなかった will simply be added to the base form of a noun or な-Adjective.

じゃ and では may also be used with the negative-past ます form of ある, to create the polite variant.

Examples

--:--

りんごじゃなかった。

It was not an apple.

先生(せんせい)じゃなかった。

They were not a teacher.

晩(ばん)ごはんが好(す)きではなかった。

Dinner was not liked by me.

その動物(どうぶつ)は、牛(うし)じゃなかった。

That animal was not a cow.

宿題(しゅくだい)は大変(たいへん)ではありませんでした。

The homework was not terrible/hard.

Get more example sentences!
Premium users get access to 12 example sentences on all Grammar Points.
Try Bunpro

Self-Study Sentences

Study your own way!

Add sentences and study them alongside Bunpro sentences.

Try Bunpro

Online
- Adjectives Past & Past Negatives
  Japanese Ammo
- Conjugating to the past state-of-being
  Tae Kim
- How to use all forms of じゃない
  Maggie Sensei

Offline
- Genki I
  Page 174
- Genki I 2nd Edition
  Page 212
- Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
  Page 32
- Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
  Page 89
- みんなの日本語 I
  Page 80 [CH 12]
Track Resources!
Bunpro tracks all of the resources you’ve visited, and offers relevant bookmarks of physical books to help with offline tracking.
Try Bunpro

じゃなかった – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (12 in total)

lorenzosama
Hi! I’m confused on when to use this " じゃありませんでした" and when to use ”じゃない". In the sentence below why is " じゃありませんでした" the correct usage? Thank you in advance

朝あさごはんを作つくったのは、お父とうさん じゃありませんでした
Pushindawood
@lorenzosama Hey! It really comes down to what level of politeness you want to use/wish to express. This particular review question actually accepts all of the following answers:

じゃなかった
ではなかった
じゃなかったです
ではなかったです
じゃありませんでした
ではありませんでした

When it comes to choosing the best answer, it would be best to refer to the post made by @mrnoone above. Let us know if you have any further questions. Cheers!
Peter_Wilson
The accepted answer for the following question is shown
風邪を [ひくつもりはなかった]

Why is じゃなかった not accepted for the past tense as じゃない is shown in the grammar notes for the present tense?