N5 Topics
L6: Getting Past It
Deepen our understanding of tense and time in Japanese
Getting Past It
In this Topic, we're going to learn more about Japanese tenses. Specifically, we're going to learn how, in reality, Japanese only has a past and non-past tense. One form is all we need for multiple different meanings!
Grammar in this Topic
Verbs (Non-past)
(Non-past)
In Japanese, the non-past form of verbs is identical to the dictionary form/casual form. Unlike English, this form of verbs is able to be used in several cases where conjugation/different constructions would be required in English.
In these examples, we can see the three forms of English verbs that are covered by the single non-past form of Japanese verbs. These are verbs ending with -s (sees, hears, goes), verbs requiring will (will see, will hear, will go), and verbs that do not require conjugation (see, hear, go).
Due to this one form of verbs covering several different nuances, it is often important to use expressions of time in the sentence, so that the meaning becomes clear.
If there is no word distinguishing 'time' in the sentence, the nuance will be that of stating a general fact about something that is true at any time.
From all of these examples, we can see that the non-past form can be thought of as expressing one of three basic ideas. General facts, habits, or future events.
Caution
In books, the non-past form will regularly be used for events that are happening 'in the moment', but without any time word being used. In these cases it is usually obvious from context that it is happening then and there.
ていた
Was doing ~
To convey that '(A) was happening', or that somebody 'was doing (A)' in Japanese, ていた (or ていました) will be used. ていた is a construction which uses the conjunction particle て, and the ichidan verb いる (to exist), in its past tense form いた.
Sometimes ていた is used to express things that are still ongoing, but the speaker is not sure about, or would like to politely advise the listener about. This is very similar to the way in which English uses '(A) was doing (B)'.
In this example, although the action of 'sitting' is not finished, we can imagine that the speaker is suggesting that 'dad was sitting here, and he still is, but he just went to get a drink'.
The same kind of sentence could be used when the speaker has walked away from where their dad was sitting, and doesn't actually know if he is still sitting there or not.
Details
The idea of tense and time can sometimes get a little confusing, so let's clear up some of the details.
That Aspect of It Is a Little Tense
As we've just learned, with just one form we can talk about everything in the 'non-past' (future and present). We also already know how to talk about things in the past. Those are the only two Japanese 'tenses'. Easy!
But we've also learned about ている being used to talk about something which is ongoing. Isn't this also a 'tense'?
Actually, this is something called ‘aspect’, not tense. Tense tells us when something happened (past or non-past), while aspect tells us how the action is going (Is it finished? Is it ongoing? Is it a result?).
In technical terms, ている tells us that something is in the 'progressive aspect'. In regular terms, it just tells us that the action is 'alive' and ongoing.
As Japanese has just two tenses, we can simply apply the specific aspect (ongoing or not) to the tense (time). We can do this using ている and ていた (ています and ていました in polite language).
If all of this sounds a little complicated, don't worry! The main thing to remember here is that Japanese doesn't really map perfectly to the English idea of time and tense, despite having some basic similarities.
Dad's Diary
--:--
僕の嫁は、僕と子供に毎朝朝ごはんを作ります。
彼女はサラダとスープとパンを作ります。
子供は毎週土曜日におばあちゃんの家に行きます。
庭に私と嫁の椅子があります。土曜日の朝は妻と二人で、その椅子に座って朝ごはんを食べます。
妻は、鳥に「おはよう。元気？」と言います。
僕はその時間が好きです。
妻と子供は、時々ヴァンパイアの映画を見て泣いています。
二人は、「怖い！」と言って見るのをやめますが、僕はそれを見て楽しんでいます。
子供は僕を見て面白いと言います。
楽しい幸せな毎日です。