Japanese Tenses Unraveled: Your Essential Guide
Master Japanese tenses easily with our insightful guide!
Japanese has a simple tense system primarily consisting of only two tenses: the present tense and the past tense. The present tense is used both for things happening now and for general or future actions, while the past tense indicates completed actions regardless of how long ago they occurred. Japanese verbs conjugate into these two tenses without changing for person or number.
Present Tense
- Used for present and future actions.
- Affirmative form is often the dictionary (plain) form of the verb.
- Negative present is made by conjugating the verb to its negative form.
- Example: 食べる (taberu) means “eat” or “will eat.”
Past Tense
- Has one form regardless of the time frame of the past event (recent or distant).
- Expresses completed actions.
- Past affirmative and negative forms are conjugated verb forms.
- Example: 食べた (tabeta) means “ate.”
Politeness and Conjugations
- Adding ます (masu) makes the verb polite in present/future.
- Adding ました (mashita) makes the verb polite past.
- Negative polite forms use ません (masen) for present/future and ませんでした (masendeshita) for past.
Auxiliary Forms
- The て form (te-form) is essential for connecting actions, making requests, or forming continuous tenses.
- Continuous/progressive actions often use the ている (te iru) form, e.g., 食べている (tabete iru) “is eating.”
In sum, the Japanese tense system is made simple by having just two basic tenses with variations mainly in politeness and negativity expressed through verb conjugations rather than separate tense forms.