Desu Tense and だ (da)

While the use of です (desu) is still fresh in your mind, we will now be changing the tense of です to make even more sentences. In the table below are the different tense forms of です to remember. Also, notice that (wa) here is written as the は particle.

Just like in English, there is also no form of future tense in Japanese so that's one less thing to worry about understanding. In English, future events can only be viewed or expressed with the use of a present tense verb.

However, despite English and Japanese having no future tense at all, Japanese verbs do not have anything similar to "will" or "shall" to view or express future events; です could be either "is" or "will be" and ではありません similarly "is not" or "will not". Context is key here.

Examples of です (desu)formal

First let's cover the past tense form of です. Past tense is where we talk about something that has already happened. The past tense form of です (desu) is でした (deshita). It's placed in the same place that です would have been.

Just like です (desu), でした (deshita) does not care about who or what the topic is. Words such as was and were in Japanese are all the same word: でした; This is because we are speaking formally.

The present negative form of です becomes ではありません (de wa arimasen) meaning "not to be". It can be thought of as the opposite of the present positive: "is" will now be "is not".

The past negative form of です is a combination of the present negative and past positive form to make ではありませんでした (de wa arimasen deshita). It can be thought of as "was not".

Being Informal with だ (da)informal

です (desu) is the fail-safe copula ending and should be the first ending you default to when you are not sure what to use or when meeting someone for the first time regardless of age or status. It can also be used to show respect towards someone or those you look up to.

However, what if you don't want to sound so formal or polite with those you are close to like friends and family. Using です all the time may feel awkward and it's not normally used in casual speech. Being informal in Japanese is a lot different than being informal in English.

In our previous lesson about です, I mentioned that です is not actually a verb and has no meaning at all in English; this is because, in Japanese, it adds different levels of politeness to what is being said. When you want to be informal, use だ (da) instead. だ works the same way as です with a few exceptions so it's very easy to just replace です with だ.

When speaking informally, you may completely omit using だ altogether. When using だ, you are more or less declaring a statement: "IT IS". Using だ when it is already obvious can make a sentence sound forceful and explicitly stating what is being declared which may come across kind of rude.

In the table below are the different tense forms of だ to remember.

When to use だ

There are two ways to use だ. Just like です, you should not use だ with verbs as those are already in the informal forms without the formal ~masu ending but we'll cover that in another lesson. Here are the four types of predicates in Japanese we saw last time:

• Verb (Do not use "da")
  e.g: watashitachi wa sushi o taberu
• Noun + (da)
  e.g: shiroi kuruma da
• na-adjective + (da)
  e.g: koko wa shizuka da
• i-adjective (Do not use "da")
  e.g: watashi no kuruma wa shiroi

Unlike です, you should never use だ with i-adjectives. Instead, you should use an i-adjective on its own when you are not adding extra politeness; i-adjective have another way of conjugating tense. だ is declaring a statement with "it is" already implied unlike です that only expresses formality and using だ with an i-adjective is like saying "It is it is".

We'll cover na-adjectives and i-adjectives in another lesson but we're showing them here so you know how they works with だ. For now, if you are unsure if a word is a noun, na-adjective or i-adjective, check out online dictionaries such as japandict.com or jisho.org.

New Words to Learn

Remember to learn how to pronounce these words by listening to real speakers and/or checking out online dictionaries such as japandict.com

Additional Information

As you may have noticed, ではありません contains the Kana は pronounced as (wa) instead of (ha). This is because it is the は particle. Just like any other language, Japanese words and meanings have changed and evolved but many have remained in modern text.

It is possible that で comes from old Japanese meaning "if not..." or "unless...". ありません (arimasen) is the negative verb form of ある (aru) meaning "to be" or "to exist". Together, this becomes de wa arimasen. In English, this won't make too much sense so try not to think about it too much for now.