Verb past tense form
Structure
- 見る・見ます => 見た・見ました
- 読む・読みます => 読んだ・読みました
- する・します => した・しました
- 来る・来ます => 来た・来ました
This lessons gives 4 examples and leaves to us to infer the rules for all verb endings. I think it would be better if it add a complete table like for the te-form lesson
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Great idea 
Added! 
To me, this feels like chaos. What about organizing it by patterns? So った、んた/んだ、いた/いだ and so on? I feel like this gives a more organized display so that people can better find a pattern.
How would I order them in both the た/て forms:
V(る1): る => た
V(る5): る => った
V(う): う => った
V(つ): つ => った
V(く): く => いた
V(ぐ): ぐ => いだ
V(む): む => んだ
V(ぬ): ぬ => んだ
V(ぶ): ぶ =>んだ
V(す): す => した
どう？
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@jprspereira Thank you for your suggestion. We do agree that the current layout is a bit chaotic and we would like to make it more intuitive in the future. Does this look a little better?
Cheers!
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I think that vertically, it does look a more attractive now! I still feel like it’s not well organized horizontally though. What happens is that I see “Casual form => Past casual form” and then I’m forced to go “past casual => past formal”, which is not how my brain visualizes it. I think this depends on how one learns verb conjugation. Let me explain:
If you guys believe that learning 歩く => 歩いた AND 歩く => 歩きました is the way to go, then I think having 2 tables separating casual from formal would be ideal (in parallel). What happens right now is that by looking at that table, my brain associates 歩く => 歩いた (perfect, that’s how I learned, that’s how I visualize it in my head and that’s how I’m seeing in the table) and 歩いた => 歩きました which feels extremely awkward for me because in my brain I don’t go “past casual => past formal”, but “casual form => past formal”.
Nevertheless, this is me going deep on details (as you guys know me). I think that your version does look much less chaotic now 
2 Likes
Hi,
First off, let me say this is a phenomenal website.
Having said that, I find the structure for this lesson hard to parse without the furigana. I can’t read any of the kanji without them, which makes the structure harder to parse.
Would it be possible to add furigana to this (and all the structures that have kanji)?
Thanks!
- Ilya
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What does the regular in 行きました(regular) mean?
It means that 行った is irregular (it does not follow the pattern of other verbs that end in く) and 行きました is regular (it follows the same pattern of any other verb that ends in く)
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Oh. Okay I understand. Thank you very much! 
I’m having a hard time understanding when you use た conjugation to show past tense versus when you use かった. And I can’t figure out how to ask google this question. Can someone tell me when you use one over the other?
Is it that う verbs use te form and い forms get katta? Or do they actually just mean different things entirely? I’m just missing something and I don’t know what it is.
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You are using the same た in both cases. I think you are thinking about how you conjugate i adjectives when attaching た.
To attach た to an i adjective you must first put that i adjective into continuous form by replacing い with かっ.
It might help you remember if you know the origin of かった. It comes from a contraction of く (from the more common continuous form of an i adjective) and あった.
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Like Gyro said, past tense is conjugated differently for verbs and both kids of adjectives. Each conjugation is taught on Bunpro for what the rules are, have you already added them to your reviews?
May need to consult Tae Kim (or your personal favorite creator!) so they can explain the rules in more detail to you and explain why it’s getting used. These things trip up most learners at one stage, I know myself I was confused but I promise it’s gonna click soon!
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ohhh it’s the same thing just how you write it! okay that makes sense for some reason i was thinknig they were two different things! Thanks guys
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Welcome to the wonderful, beautiful and confusing world of Japanese grammar hahaha. Feel free to ask any and all questions along the way, it really does make the process a million times more enjoyable 
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This is the most difficult grammar point so far, I’m really struggling to take in the wealth of information in one go.
I’d highly recommend splitting う-Verb (Past) into 1 point for each kana.
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for this question: 彼は学校へ行った。彼は学校へ行きました。
the correct answer is: いった but it says my answer is wrong. the only way that it’ll accept my answer is if i copy/paste った and add い. am i missing something here? annoying af
I’m using hints so I have no problem, but out of curiousity.
Is there actually a way to know that the past is requested just by looking at the sentence?
大学にカフェが________。[ある]
Nope. None whatsoever from that sentence.
Unless the sentence references some event in the past, like “yesterday, before, when I attended college” you usually won’t know it’s past tense until the end, without having any context from earlier conversation