Speaking in Past tense

[Matterwave]

Hey, I have a question about speaking in past tense. I'm currently using Rosetta stone, so some of the subtleties may not have occurred to me.

If I say a sentence like:

"Mae wa, watashi wa sakkaa o shite imashita."

Could I instead say:

"Mae wa, watashi wa sakkaa o shimashita."

Is there a difference?

Basically, I'm asking what is the difference between something like "hashirimashita" and "hashitte imashita".

[Sashimister]

This is a prime example of why one should never use romaji. I, a seasoned native speaker of Japanese, have no idea if you're talking about being a writer or playing soccer.

[willgoestocollege]

He's talking about being a writer. Soccer in romaji would be sakkaa (or ends with an a with a line above it).

[Matterwave]

I'm sorry I wrote it wrong. I meant soccer. I am a beginner after all...

But my question is still valid isn't it?

I'm just asking the difference between putting the "-shita" after the "imasu" or after the word itself (something like this).

[willgoestocollege]

Don't worry I'm also learning Japanese too.

I think the difference of the two sentences is that using shimashita is the polite past tense form of doing something.

[minamo9]

All non native speakers are still learning, trust me.

With all those kanji you have years and years of pleasure studying.

Learning japanese chars would be nice though.

Just start with hiragana.

Good luck!

Henk.

[Matterwave]

Yea I am slowly learning Hiragana hehe, but when I type with windows, it sometimes automatically converts to kanji which I don't know (well I know most of them because I'm Chinese, but I don't know if they are correctly used in the context of Japanese). Also, windows doesn't seem to pick up on the grammar characters like "wa" is “は”　and not ”わ”. I'm still trying to sort this out so in the mean time I figured I'd just type in Romanji.

[minamo9]

I had the same problem, i even tried microsoft ime wich failed.


Now i just use a romaji to hiragana converter, you can find them on the web.

However, write slowly and always double check if you know every single char your typing in romaji,Otherwise its no use.

seperate kanji can be found on any site, i use david hallgrens one currently.

good luck

Henk.