For today’s post, we’ll tackle conjugating verbs in the past tense, but only in the standard polite form. Let’s take a look at this sentence: “학교에 갔어요“. (학교 = school. 에 = location marking particle. 갔어요 = went.) In English this sentence would be, “I went to school”. The infinitive of the verb “went” is “to go” or “가다“. When you drop the 다 the stem 가 is left. Just add ㅆ어요 to 가 to make it past tense. Now let’s try that with 하다 verbs. 사랑하다 (to love) will be 사랑했어요 in the past tense. For 하다 verbs, drop the 다 and change 하 to 해 and add ㅆ어요 to the stem.

The irregular verbs that we’ve gone over so far are the verbs ending in ㄹ and ㄷ. With ㄹ verbs like 열다 (to open) it will be 열었어요 in the standard polite past tense. With ㄹ ending verbs, drop the 다 and add 었어요 to the stem. With ㄷ ending verbs like 듣다 (to hear, to listen) it will be 들었어요 in the standard polite past tense. With ㄷ ending verbs, drop the 다 and change the ㄷ on the bottom with ㄹ. Then add 었어요 to the stem. Ok, so here’s a test, what is the standard polite past tense of 살다 (to live) and 걷다 (to walk)? The answers are: 살았어요 and 걸었어요.

Did you notice that 살았어요 didn’t follow the regular pattern? Unlike the other verbs that ended in 었어요, 살았어요 ended with 았어요. That’s because 살다 contains an 아 vowel, which requires the verb to be conjugated in the 았어요 form. Verbs like 걷다 have the 어 vowel which requires the verb to be conjugated as 었어요. So, let’s do a little test, how would you conjugate 깨닫다 (to realize) and 받다 (to receive)? 깨닫다 will be 깨달았어요 in the standard polite past tense. However 받다 will be 받았어요. Hopefully you’ve remembered from the previous posts that not all ㄷ ending verbs change to a ㄹ and this is true for the verb 받다.

Now lastly, let’s look at the copula 이다. To change 학생이에요 (I’m a student) to the standard polite past tense, drop the 에요 and add 었어요. So 학생이에요 will turn to 학생이었어요 (I was a student). With 소라예요 (It’s Sora) it’ll change to 소라였어요 (It was Sora). With 예요 ending copulas, drop the 예요 and add 였어요. Now with 있다 endings, it will change to 있었어요 in the standard polite past tense. With the 아니다 (to not be etc.) it will change to 아니었어요 in the standard polite past tense. Just drop the 다 and add 었어요 to 아니. There was a lot of content in this post, so I may do a quiz on the past tense forms soon. For now just take a look at everything and see if you understand the general gist of this post.