Japanese Tenses
Japanese has two tenses: perfective (similar to past tense) and imperfective (not past tense). You can represent other tenses, such as progressive tense, by combining different words together. But when dealing with conjugating lone words, only these two tenses exist.
In class we learned how to conjugate adjectivals, nominals, and verbals into perfective and imperfective tenses. But for verbals, we only learned the conjugation of distal (respectful) style verbals. So we’ll go over everything here, but focus more on conjugating direct style verbals.
Adjectivals
All adjectivals end with an い. A = Adjectival Stem (the adjectival without the ending い).
Distal Style
Imperfective - A + い です
Negative Imperfective - A + く ない です OR A + く ありません
Perfective - A + かった です
Negative Perfective - A + く なかった です OR A + く ありません でした
Ex. table for 高い (expensive)
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 高いです "[It] is expensive" |
高かったです "[It] was expensive" |
| Negative | 高くないです OR 高くありません "[It] is not expensive" |
高くなかったです OR 高くありませんでした "[It] was not expensive" |
Direct Style
The funny thing is that the copula (です), is only attached to add politeness and to make it distal style. So for direct style, use the same rultes as above, just don’t add です. ありません is distal, so just use the ない alternative.
Ex. table for 不味い (tastes bad)
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 不味い "[It] is bad tasting" |
不味かった "[It] was bad tasting" |
| Negative | 不味くない "[It] is not bad tasting" |
不味くなかった "[It] was not bad tasting" |
- You can also translate it to “It tastes bad”, but I left it awkward because that way it feels more like an “adjective”
Nominals
Not quite sure why our book calls them nominals, but they are basically the English equivalent of nouns. I think they do this to separate them from English style nouns, since some adjectives in English (such as pretty = 綺麗) are represented as nominals in Japanese. Other sources just call these na-adjectives, even though they follow the same rules as nominals.
Anyway, conjugating these aren’t that bad. N = Nominal.
Distal Style
Imperfective - N + です
Negative Imperfective - N + じゃ ない です OR N + じゃ ありません
Perfective - N + でした
Negative Perfective - N + じゃ なかった です OR N + じゃ ありません でした
Ex. table for 綺麗 (pretty)
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 綺麗です "[It] is pretty" |
綺麗でした "[It] was pretty" |
| Negative | 綺麗じゃないです OR 綺麗じゃありません "[It] is not pretty" |
綺麗じゃなかったです OR 綺麗じゃありませんでした "[It] was not pretty" |
Direct Style
Quite similar to the distal style. For the postive versions, the copula is used, so you can use the more direct style copula, だ, instead of です. For the negative versions, since ない (and its past tense form) is just a distal adjectival (because a desu is attached to it), just don’t put a です. ありません is pretty distal, but the unformal version of the verbal is actually just ない.
Imperfective - N + だ
Negative Imperfective - N + じゃ ない
Perfective - N + だった
Negative Perfective - N + じゃ なかった
Ex. table for 時間 (time)
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 時間だ "[It] is time" |
時間だった "[It] was time" |
| Negative | 時間じゃない "[It] is not time" |
時間じゃなかった "[It] was not time" |
Verbals
Verbals are pretty weird.
Distal Style
VS = Verbal Stem. We haven’t learned this term in class yet, but the verbal stem will represent the i-form of the verbal. Taking the dictionary form of the verbal, if it is an Ichidan verbal, drop the ending る. If it is a Godan verbal, change the ending kana to the corresponding い sound equivalent. Ex. う -> い, る -> り, く -> き, ち -> つ, etc. All dictionary form verbals end in an う sound kana.
Ex.
Ichidan:
For 逃げる, VS would be 逃げ
For 食べる, VS would be 食べ
Godan:
For 買う, VS would be 買い
For しる, VS would be しり
You can read more on Wikipedia or your textbook. Most textbooks uses those terminology, but my textbook doesn’t. Probably because it is 30+ years old. Anyway, knowing VS is just i-form, we can distal conjugate.
Imperfective - VS + ます
Negative Imperfective - VS + ません
Perfective - VS + ました
Negative Perfective - VS + ませんでした
Ex. table for 買う (to buy)
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 買います "[I] buy [it]" |
買いました "[I] bought [it]" |
| Negative | 買いません "[I] do not buy [it]" |
買いませんでした "[I] did not buy [it]" |
Direct Style
Unfortunately, direct style is not much easier. V is how the verbal is listed in the dictionary (dictionary form). Ex. 見る, 使う.
Imperfective - V. Just the dictionary form. The easiest.
Negative Imperfective - For Ichidan verbs, drop the ending る and add ない. For Godan verbs, Convert the ending kana to the あ equivalent. UNLESS it is う, then convert it to a わ. After conversion, add ない.
Perfective - You kinda just have to learn this. There is no one rule for all of them. Basically the way I do it is take the gerund of the verbal, and change the ending kana to have an あ sound. There’s only 2 gerund endings, so て -> た and で -> だ. But yeah, you basically need to know how to convert verbals into their gerund for direct perfective tense.
Negative Perfective - The Negative Imperfective ended with ない. Change it to なかった.
I’ll do a few tables since this is the hardest.
Ex. table for 買う (to buy) - godan
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 買う "[I] buy [it]" |
買った "[I] bought [it]" |
| Negative | 買わない "[I] do not buy [it]" |
買わなかった "[I] did not buy [it]" |
Ex. table for 飲む (to drink) - godan
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 飲む "[I] drink [it]" |
飲んだ "[I] drank [it]" |
| Negative | 飲まない "[I] do not drink [it]" |
飲まなかった "[I] did not drink [it]" |
Ex. table for 寝る (to sleep / go to bed / lie down) - ichidan
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | 寝る "[I will] go to bed [it]" |
寝た "[I] went to bed [it]" |
| Negative | 寝ない "[I] will/do not go to bed [it]" |
寝なかった "[I] did not go to bed [it]" |
Exceptions
Sometimes exceptions are cool, but here they kinda suck. These are the exceptions that I currently know of.
Adjectival: いい
いい comes from the old version of it: 良い / よい. For some reason we use いい for the positive imperfective, but the よい conjugations for the rest…
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | いいです "[It] is good" |
よかったです "[It] was good" |
| Negative | よくないです "[It] is not good" |
よくなかったです "[It] was not good" |
よかった(です)is used to mean “I’m glad” as well
Verbal: する
Just an irregular.
Distal:
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | します "[I] do [it]" |
しました "[I] did [it]" |
| Negative | しません "[I] don't do [it]" |
しませんでした "[I] did not do [it]" |
Direct:
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | する "[I] do [it]" |
した "[I] did [it]" |
| Negative | しない "[I] don't do [it]" |
しなかった "[I] did not do [it]" |
Verbal: 来る
Just an irregular. Dictionary form pronoucned くる. I’ll use the kana here, because the kanji doesn’t show the sound changes.
Distal:
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | きます "[I] [will] come" |
きました "[I] came" |
| Negative | きません "[I] don't come" |
きませんでした "[I] did not come" |
Direct:
| Imperfective | Perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| Postive | くる "[I] [will] come" |
きた "[I] came" |
| Negative | こない "[I] don't come" |
こなかった "[I] did not come" |
Verbal: 有る
Dictionary form pronounced ある. Everything follows the rules as a godan verbal, except negative direct style.
Negative Imperfective - ない
Negative Imperfective - なかった
Kinda weird huh.
Cool, so using the conjugations of tenses for nominals, verbals, and adjectivals, we can form other conjugations like imperative, conditional, etc. later on.