past suffix -TA / -DA

The past form of a vowel verb is formed by adding TA to the stem. E.g., kilu きる"wears" has a stem KI and a past kita きた"wore". The present KILU is the stem KI plus LU.

To form the past of a consonant verb, replace the last kana of the present form according to this table:

stem	present	replace by
S	SU ス	shita した
T, W, L	TSU ツ, U ウ, LU ル	tta った
K	KU ク	ita いた
G	GU グ	ida いだ
B, M, N	BU ブ, MU ム, NU ヌ	nnda んだ

E.g., kilu きる"cuts" has a stem KIL and a past KITTA キッタ"cut" (as in "he cut it"). The present KILU is the stem KIL plus a U.

More examples:

	stem	present	past
I	MI	milu みるsees	mita みたsaw
E	DE	delu でるgoes out	deta でたwent out
S	KAS	kasu かすlends	kashita かしたlent
T	KAT	katsu かつwins	katta かったwon
W	KAW	kau かうbuys	katta かったbought
L	KAL	kalu かるrents	katta かったrented
K	KAK	kaku かくwrites	kaita かいたwrote
G	NUG	nugu ぬぐgets undressed	nuida ぬいだgot undressed
B	YOB	yobu よぶcalls	yonnda よんだcalled
M	YOM	yomu よむreads	yonnda よんだread
N	SIN	shinu しぬdies	shinnda しんだdied

As you can see, there are two problems here:

1. if you see kilu きる written in kana you can't know if it's the kiru meaning "wears" (whose past is kita きた) or the kiru meaning "cuts" (whose past is kitta きった), and
2. if you see katta かった written in kana, it might mean "won", "bought" or "rented".

If the present of a verb ends in ILU or ELU there's no way to be sure about its past form. This is not a problem. After all, in English you don't have problems to remember that the past form of "he sits" is "he sat" but the past form of "he hits" is not "he hat". this means taht, when taking vocabulary notes, you should not write "kiru = cut" or "kiru = wear". Instead of that, look for examples of the past form in a dictionary, and write down "kiru (kitta) = cut" or "kiru (kita) = wear".

When the verb ends in anything else, as for instance in BU or in OLU, you can guess the past form from the table. E.g. the past of HAKADOLU "makes progress" can only be HAKADOTTA. So, when taking notes, "hakadoru = make progress" is enough.

Note that most ELU verbs have a past ETA. I think there must be about half a dozen ELU verbs with a stem in EL and a past form in ETTA:

• KAELU / KAETTA = will go home / went home
• HALAGAHELU / HALAGAHETTA = I will be hungry / I am hungry
• KELU / KETTA = will kick / kicked
• SHABELU / SHABETTA = speaks / spoke
• SUBELU / SUBETTA = will ski / skied

i い-Adjectives
How to Read Japanese Manga
subject and object

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