1

What does してた in 元気してた means? How it came to being してた? I know that the original form of し is する, then what does 元気する means? It's really confusing. For context please see the images below:

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

These screenshots contain Chinese and Japanese subtitles. You can see the Japanese subtitles.

laser2302
  • 315
  • 3
  • 7

1 Answers1

2

「元気{げんき}してた？」

is just a more informal/colloquial way of saying:

「元気にしてた？」

which is already fairly informal. You can only say these to close friends and people younger than you.

Both expressions mean:

"Have you been alright?"

A more "textbook" way of saying this would be:

「（お）元気にされていましたか？」 or 「（お）元気でしたか？」

Those can be said to people older than you.

  • How do we understand してた? I understand this して as the -て form of する (to do) and the past tense of して is してた, so it becomes "have been doing" (since -て form here stands for continuing action). に in 元気にしてた means "at/in" or "regarding". So I suppose 「元気にしてた？」 can be literally understood as "Regarding health, have been doing?". Is my understanding correct. But then, I don't see an interrogative particle here such as か or の, then how does it become a question? – laser2302 Sep 29 '17 at 14:39
  • 2
    1) してた is a contraction of していた which is the past tense of している, so it means 'have been doing'. 2) 元気 is a na-adjective. These types of words can modify verbs by changing な to に. 3) You don't need a particle to ask a question. Rising intonation is sufficient. Overall you get something like 'have you been doing well?'. – user3856370 Sep 30 '17 at 11:43