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Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [past]

51 questions
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What does the ~たものか mean in どうやって彼らを誤魔化したものか?

I stumbled upon this sentence: どうやって彼らを誤魔化したものか──と思案するように、ヒューイは愛想笑いを浮かべた。 and I was told that I should understand it as どうやって彼らを誤魔化せばいいだろうか──と思案するように、ヒューイは愛想笑いを浮かべた。 However I can't find in any dictionary at hand an entry which would explain…
永劫回帰
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Is there a distinction between ‘did" and "have done" in Japanese?

According to internet sources and my Chinese friend living in Japan, there isn't. However, can someone provide more evidence on this issue? If there is no grammatical distinction, how can we distinguish these two tenses? I mean, how do we know if…
Zeyuan
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Standard Formula for Past Counterfactual Conditional (what is the role of -te iru?)

What is the standard formula for making a counterfactual conditional sentence that talks about the past? That is, English conditionals that have this pattern: "If ..... had ..... , ..... would have ...... " I have checked these similar questions…
Esoppant
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Differences between た/てた

Context: From Yotsuba&, they went gathering chestnuts and one of them had a bug in it so they threw it away. But here the young girl is eating from the rest and her sister is saying that there were still bugs in them that morning. My question…
TheComputerist
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Negative present endings translated as past tense

I've seen certain translations where I feels like there's a shift in the tenses. Ex: なぜ早く言わない!？ translated to "Why didn't you say so sooner!?" In fact, I've experienced a lot of cases where a character says the word in it's negative present form in…
Asprius
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Can the て-form be used as a た-form substitute?

I've been reading manga by myself for some time, and I've been noticing sentences where the て-form takes the role of a past tense marker (that is, the role of the た-form). At first I was letting it slide, but it keeps appearing in more and more…
A. Iron
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Usage of 「書かない」referring to famous authors

In Yorushika's song "Hitchcock"'s lyrics appears the sentence: ニーチェもフロイトもこの穴の埋め方は書かないんだ Which is translated as "Neither Nietche nor Freud wrote about how to fill this hole" by some dude on youtube, which logically makes sense, but doesn't based on…
Tennouji
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Why「なっていた」is used here?

I was reading a manga about a boy who turned into a girl. I found this odd line. つまり... 目が覚めたら突然女の子になっていた... という事でいいですか? When the girl-boy arrived at school, his kouhai didn't recognize him at first. After he explained to him everything, the…
Jimmy Yang
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How to ask if an action in the past was permissible?

I'm familiar with the てもいい form to ask for permission to do something in the future. For instance: Is it okay if I eat the candy? 菓子を食べてもいいか。 How would I ask if something I did already in the past was permitted? I thought to change いい to よかった…
Nick Ulle
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Question about past tense with noun

I'm having trouble with past tense + noun. For example "弟の言うことを聞いたばかりにひどい目にあった" Or "この教授はしゃべるのが速すぎて、誰も言っていることを理解出来なかった" Why is used 言うこと instead of 言ったこと / 言っている instead of 言っていた? In this sentence is used past tense with a noun…
Pokled
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Past tense and continuous tense of verb (持った・持っている)

I was watching a Japanese video and it seems it is more accurate to say 傘を持った rather then 傘を持っている to indicate that I am holding an umbrella. For example if someone asks "傘を持った？" the grammatically correct reply would be "持ったよ" rather then "持っているよ".…
Newbie
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Does ばかり (meaning 'just happened') have to be a voluntary action (like たところ?)

Is ばかり the same as たところ in the sense that the action must be voluntary? e.g. Winter just ended, could you use ばかり？
lois.e
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How to express feelings about a performed action?

I am wondering how I express my feelings about an action that has already occurred/been performed. For example, how would I state the following: I am happy to have returned home. I am sad that I missed the train. I am upset that I finished the…
Jon D
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what form 死ねたのに is?

I've come across this phrase 今の一撃を素直に食らっておけば、楽に死ねたのにね and I think it translates to something like: "if you had taken that attack obediently, you would have died in peace", but I can't really understand that 死ねた: is it potential? a past of some…
user18767
3
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ムダ足だった == useless leg?

When I look up the phrase 無駄足だった, I see it translated as "It was a Wild goose chase." I found this bizarre, since it seems like it would mean "It was a useless foot/leg." is this some sort of figure of speech that means the same or something similar…
Cole Fudge
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