This phrase is confusing me. Why is ‘to pray’ in the past tense here? Surely the praying is either going on or about to go on?
"きみはスマホに水みずをこぼしちゃったあとでまだ使えるように祈ったほうがいいよ！
You’d better pray that phone is still usable after you spilled water on it!"
Thanks everyone!
Charles
Welcome Charles,
The use of the past has to do with the way ‘you’d better…’ is expressed in Japanese in this sentence: it uses the construction ’ ～たほうがいい’, which requires the past form of the verb, 祈る in this case.
You can find more details about this construction here.
HTH!