Hey everyone, hope you’re all well. I’m making a post here that will go into a bit of detail for the Tense Hints seen in the grammar study questions, as it seems there are a decent amount of questions about them here in the forums. This won’t necessarily cover all of them, but I’ll be sure to cover those that seem to be getting the most questions. And depending on necessity, I may eventually go into detail for all of them.
I’ll start by breaking the hints down into 3 categories: Tense/Negation/Conjugation, Formality/Register and Special. In this post I’m going to go over the hints in the first 2 categories, Tense/Negation/Conjugation and Formality/Register.
Tense/Negation/Conjugation:
- Negative: The answer ends with ない or ません.
- Past: The answer is in the past tense. (でした、だった、美味しかった、飲んだ、etc)
- Negative-past: The answer is in the past tense of the negative form. (食べなかった、飲みませんでした、etc)
- Progressive: The answer is in the progressive tense. (話している、生きています、etc)
- Negative-progressive: The answer is in the progressive tense of the negative form. (寝ていない、書いていません、etc)
- Past-progressive: The answer is in the past-progressive tense. (寝ていた、食べていました、etc)
- Negative-past-progressive: The answer is in the past-progressive tense of the negative form. (寝ていなかった、食べていませんでした、etc)
- Causative: The answer is in the causitive conjugation. (話させる、見させる、させます、etc)
- Passive: The answer is in the passive conjugation. (話される、見られる、されます、etc)
- Past-passive: The answer is in the past tense of the passive conjugation. (食べられた、飲まれました、etc)
- Causative-passive: The answer is in the causative-passive conjugation. (見させられる、休ませられる・休まされる、させられる、etc)
- Past-causative-passive: The answer is in the past tense of the causative-passive conjugation. (出させられた、飲まされました、させられました、etc)
- Causative-past: The answer is in the past tense of the causative conjugation. (話させた、させました、etc)
- During: The answer uses a grammar point that specifically carries the nuance of something happening at the same time as something else. (ついでに、最中に、している間に、etc)
- Dictionary/Non-past: The answer is specifically not in the past tense. This is used to clarify when to not use a past tense answer, as some questions could grammatically be correct with either. (パンを＿＿＿か？Both 食べます and 食べた would grammatically work here, but we’re looking specifically for 食べます)
Formality/Register:
- Standard: The answer ends in the plain form. (食べる、話さない、休む、大きくない、飲んでいる、etc)
- Polite: The answer ends in the polite ます・です form. (食べます、話しません、でした、etc)
- て: The answer ends in て which can be conjunctive or like a request. (食べて、見えて、直し続けて、etc)
- Casual: The answer is a casual, conversational expression or abbreviated response. (って、かも、etc)
- Kenjougo: The answer uses the humble-language 謙譲語. (でございます、いたします、etc)
- Sonkeigo: The answer uses respectful-language 尊敬語. (お持ちください、お見えになる、etc)
- Assertive: The answer carries an assertive tone of voice or nuance. (するな、くるな、etc)
- Colloquial: The answer uses a colloquial expression, not necessarily used in polite speech. (しなくちゃ、なきゃ、etc)
- Emphatic: The answer carries a nuance of placing emphasis on the statement being made. (すぎる、すればいい、のあまり、etc)
- Authoritative: The answer carries a weight of authority, and is typically used when speaking downward. (みてごらん、やってみることだ、etc)
- Literary: The answer is much more common in literature or academic materials and conversation. Typically more formal than everyday Japanese, but less so than keigo. (である、にかんして、あるいは、etc)
- Archaic: The answer is archaic in that it is not commonly used in typical conversation or language anymore, but may still be seen in literature or in period-pieces and the like. (せざるをえない、といえども、the negation ぬ、etc)
- Formal Conjunctive: The answer ends in the formal conjuctive form, which is the ます stem for verbs and the て form of い-adjectives with the て dropped. (大きく、食べ、ない→なく、etc)
- Old-fashioned: The answer uses old-fashioned Japanese that is less common in daily conversation and business today, but can still be heard used by older generations. (に付け、上は、etc)
These hints work together to point more accurately towards how to conjugate your response to match exactly what the question is looking for. They aren’t meant to give you the answer, but to remove a lot of the uncertainty we had in the past.
So when you see ‘Past, Standard’ in the tense field, you know the answer should be in the plain-past tense, like 食べた. If it instead said ‘Past, Polite’ in the tense field, it would be 食べました.
Another example would be a combination of ‘Standard, Kenjougo’ like でござる, whereas ‘Polite, Kenjougo’ would be でございます.
I hope this post answers some questions about the tense hints and makes things a little easier to understand and follow. As always feel free to post any questions or thoughts you might have and keep up the great work everyone! 