[N2] Past tense (た), or dictionary form (る) before nouns

Japanese
#1

Hello!
I have noticed this on quite a few grammar points, but haven’t seen them side by side until today so I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask!

What is the difference in meaning of a verb using the past tense before a noun, or the dictionary form before a noun?

I was under the impression that they mean just about the same thing, but the past tense before a noun acts more as an adjective / actually is attributed to the noun?
I’ve seen plenty of examples of either case, and I’ve not really come across an obvious difference in translation. Any help or pointers would be appreciated!

In the image attached, there doesn’t seem to be a difference in translation:

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#2

している can be treated as “While” or “As I was”
The first should read: while I was making a left turn a bicycle suddenly appeared in front of me.
Not sure if there is a transitive past tense in English, but

た form of past tense is more clear. Also, toki would make the second sentence a lot better/natural.
When I was dancing in the break room my juniors walked in.

#3

Is there even a difference with past progressive and present progressive with tokoro?

#4

Hi!

First, I wanted to make a small correction in regards to the terminology being used. You mentioned Dictionary form in the title, but it’s more accurate to say the Plain form (specifically the ている form in this case). The Dictionary form is the present/habitual/future tense.

With that out of the way, these sentences ended up being translated the same because of the final verb being in the past tense. Otherwise they would have been translated as expected, with ているところに being in a continuous state and たところに being in the past tense.

If we were to translate them literally, you’d end up with:

“Just as I’m making a left turn in my car, a bicycle suddenly jumped out.”

“Just as a was dancing in the break room, my juniors came into the break room.”

Translating them this way shows the slight differences. But, as you can see, they are kinda saying the same thing so the translation ended up being the same. Hopefully that makes sense.

Take care!