-CHATTA / -JATTA verbs

The suffix chatta ちゃった "ended up doing" is used to express that the action of the verb was unexpected or involuntary.

Of course, saying that anything you did was involuntary is inherently impolite in Japanese culture. In real life, the polite thing to do when something bad happens is blaming yourself, even if it isn't your fault. This is what your Japanese teacher expects you to do. For that matter, this is what all Japanese are expected to do at all times. This is why your teacher does not want you to say things like "oops, it slipped!"; you should spend your time in class learning useful polite sentences instead, like "I feel sincerely distressed for my error and beg for your forgiveness". And this is why "chatta" is rarely mentioned in Japanese textbooks.

However, that only applies to real life. The fictional Japanese in manga, however, sometimes say not-absolutely-polite things, so you'll need to know about the expression when you read manga, even if you aren't planning to use it.

To say that something that happened was not your fault, change the final ta た of the past verb into chatta ちゃった:

chikoku shita ちこく した	I was late (maybe deliberately)
chikoku shichatta ちこく しちゃった	I ended up being late (I didn't want to)

If the past verb ends in da だ, change that da だ into jatta じゃった:

neko no shippo o funnda
ねこ の しっぽ を ふんだ
I have deliberately stepped on the cat's tail

neko no shippo o funnjatta
ねこ の しっぽ を ふんじゃった
I have accidentally stepped on the cat's tail

Most of the time chatta ちゃった is used when bad things happen. Most English speakers to express the idea of "bad luck", use words like "gosh" or "dammit" or "heck" or "hell". Feel free to add one of these to your translations from Japanese. English has hundreds of such expressions; use whatever agrees with the tone of voice of the original, age and sex of the speaker, relative social status &c.

-NAKYA / -ANAKYA verbs
How to Read Japanese Manga
the abusive imperative

Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/manga/tyatta.en.html
Last revised: 2008-10-25