12.6 Review
In this chapter, you have honed your skills in using the past tense in Japanese, focusing on essential grammatical points and daily expressions, including:
Learned more kanji
You’ve expanded your knowledge of the kanji for 天 (heaven), 気 (spirit), 元 (origin), 外 (outside) and 国 (country).
Familiarised yourself with the past tense of nouns and adjectives
You have learned how to conjugate nouns and adjectives into their past-tense forms, enabling you to describe past experiences and qualities.
Mastered the past tense of verbs
You can now effectively use verbs in the past tense, allowing you to talk about actions that occurred in the past.
Gained proficiency in the past tense of あります and います
You have mastered the past-tense forms of あります and います, enabling you to describe the existence or presence of objects, events, people and animals in the past.
Learned to express desires using the past tense of たいです
You can now express desires in the past tense using たかったです, expanding your ability to convey what you wanted to do.
These skills will add so much to your Japanese conversations, and with regular practice, they’ll start to feel natural.
To help you lock in everything you’ve learned in this chapter, we’ve put together a fun revision exercise. Whether you’re looking to brush up on your skills or test your understanding, this exercise is here for you. If you find anything tricky, don’t hesitate to revisit the chapter for a refresher.
Exercise 1