Structure
座る + らなかった
歌う + わなかった
歩く + かなかった
話す + さなかった
打つ + たなかった
死ぬ + ななかった
飛ぶ + ばなかった
休む + まなかった
泳ぐ + がなかった
Exceptions:
ある → なかった
Details
Part of Speech
Verb
Word Type
Auxiliary Verb
Register
Standard
About う-Verb (Negative-Past)
In order to make the negative past form of う-Verbs, you will need to change the last kana of the verb into the あ sound kana from the same column (or わ if the original kana was う). After this, the あ sound kana will be followed by ない (or ます), conjugated into their past forms. This will either be なかった (casual), or ませんでした (polite).
For the ませんでした (polite) form, rather than the final kana changing to the あ sound kana from the same column, it will change to the い sound kana from the same column.
The negative past form is used to convey that something 'did not happen', or 'was not'.
A semi-polite form may also be used. This is constructed by using なかった, and then simply adding です. This form is not grammatically correct, but is so common that most sources (and native speakers) would consider it correct.
ある is an exception to the regular conjugation rules of う-Verbs. The casual past-negative is not あらなかった, but simply なかった. However, the polite past-negative form conjugates in the same way as would be expected for う-Verbs. ありませんでした.
Examples
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昨日、行かなかった。
昨日、行かなかったです。
昨日、行きませんでした。
I didn't go yesterday.
遊ばなかった。
遊ばなかったです。
遊びませんでした。
I didn't hang out.
はなこさんは話さなかった。
はなこさんは話さなかったです。
はなこさんは話しませんでした。
Hanako didn't talk.
彼女は事故で死ななかった!
彼女は事故で死ななかったです!
彼女は事故で死にませんでした!
She didn't die in the accident!
それも知らなかった。[知る]
I didn’t know that either.
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Godan Verbs 五段活用動詞
Imabi
Past-negative tense for all verbs
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
Informal Past Negative form of Verbs
Japanese Ammo
Aeron Buchanan's Japanese Verb Chart
Wikipedia Commons
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Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
87 & 52
Genki I 2nd Edition
110 & 212
Try N5
39 & 101
みんなの日本語 I, Translation & Grammatical Notes
34
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う-Verb (Negative-Past) – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (15 in total)
homa
I struggle with the way bunpro gives me a solution here.
discopatrick
For me, at the beginning at least, I think this is fine if you view the card as teaching you that there is a pattern between the three ways of saying it.
However, as my understanding progresses, I would expect to be challenged to recall each style individually without having the hint of the others being present. If there are no cards where BunPro does this, then that sounds like a gap in the curriculum to me.
homa
Ye, after posting this I realized that it’s not that big of a deal if you go beyond first ~50-100 topics as you see this latter everywhere, a lot of conjugations are based on it. So the only problem is to remember exceptions for い and え rule
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