Plain Past 〜た | Japanese Grammar

The plain past — the 〜た form — is how you talk about things that already happened when you are speaking casually: with friends, with family, in a diary, or inside your own head. It is the counterpart of the polite 〜ました form, and it is one of the four cells every Japanese verb fills (see the conjugation map).

Here is the single most useful fact on this page: the 〜た form is the te-form with its last vowel changed from e to a. 食べて → 食べた, 飲んで → 飲んだ, 書いて → 書いた. If you already know a verb's te-form, you already know its plain past. Learn them as a pair and you only pay the memorization cost once.

Ichidan verbs: drop る, add た

For ichidan (ru-)verbs the past could not be simpler. Drop the final る and add た. No sound-changes, no exceptions — the same move you make for the ます-form, just with た.

Dictionary	Meaning	Plain past
食べる	to eat	食べた
見る	to see, to watch	見た
起きる	to get up	起きた
寝る	to sleep	寝た
教える	to teach	教えた

昨日、友達と映画を見た。

kinō, tomodachi to eiga o mita

Yesterday I watched a movie with a friend.

もう朝ごはん食べた？

mō asa-gohan tabeta?

Have you eaten breakfast yet?

The two irregulars: する → した, 来る → 来た

There are only two truly irregular verbs, and their past forms are worth memorizing as fixed words.

Dictionary	Meaning	Plain past
する	to do	した
来る（くる）	to come	来た（きた）

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来た is read きた, not kuta. The kanji 来 keeps its dictionary reading in your eyes but its stem changes to き in the past — the same き you hear in 来ます (きます). Fix the reading now and it never trips you up later.

宿題、もうした？

shukudai, mō shita?

Have you done your homework yet?

あ、田中さんが来た。

a, Tanaka-san ga kita

Oh, Tanaka's here.

Because する attaches to nouns to make compound verbs, this one form gives you thousands of pasts for free: 勉強する → 勉強した, 電話する → 電話した, 予約する → 予約した.

Godan verbs: the same た, but the stem shifts

Godan verbs are where the only real complication lives. You cannot simply chop the last kana and bolt on た — the ending fuses with the stem and triggers a euphonic change (音便, onbin). These shifts are covered cell-by-cell on the godan 〜た euphonic changes page; here is the quick map so you can see the shape of it.

Ends in	Becomes	Example
う・つ・る	った	買う → 買った, 待つ → 待った, 取る → 取った
ぬ・ぶ・む	んだ	死ぬ → 死んだ, 遊ぶ → 遊んだ, 飲む → 飲んだ
く	いた	書く → 書いた
ぐ	いだ	泳ぐ → 泳いだ
す	した	話す → 話した
行く (exception)	行った	the only く-verb that takes った

ゆうべ、ビールを二本飲んだ。

yūbe, bīru o nihon nonda

I drank two beers last night.

週末、京都に行った。

shūmatsu, Kyōto ni itta

I went to Kyoto over the weekend.

あ、鍵が見つかった！

a, kagi ga mitsukatta!

Ah, I found my keys!

Note that 帰る (to go home) looks ichidan — it ends in える — but it is one of the godan verbs in disguise, so its past is 帰った (kaetta), not ×帰た.

田中さん、もう帰った。

Tanaka-san, mō kaetta

Tanaka already went home.

The te-form / た-form parallel

Look at the godan table again next to the te-form: the machinery is identical. The final vowel is the only difference — て → た, で → だ (see the て／た parallel).

te-form	plain past
食べて	食べた
書いて	書いた
飲んで	飲んだ
話して	話した
買って	買った
行って	行った
して	した

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Don't learn the past-tense sound-changes and the te-form sound-changes as two separate lists. They are the same list. Memorize one, swap て↔た and で↔だ, and you have the other — that halves the work.

What the plain past actually means

Japanese has one past form doing the work English splits between "ate," "have eaten," and "had eaten." 食べた can mean I ate, I have eaten, or (in a subordinate clause) simply finished eating. It also appears inside relative clauses and set expressions where English would not use a past tense at all. The full range is covered on what the past form means — for now, treat 〜た as "the thing already happened."

ごめん、電車が遅れた。

gomen, densha ga okureta

Sorry, my train was late.

Register: this is the casual form

The plain past is casual register. Use it with people you are close to, in your own notes, and — crucially — inside subordinate clauses even in polite speech (e.g. 食べたあとで, 見たとき), because the plain form is the default for anything that isn't the final verb of a polite sentence. To end a sentence politely with a stranger or superior, switch to 〜ました.

Common mistakes

❌ きのう本を読みた。

kinō hon o yomita

Incorrect: a godan む-verb doesn't take plain た.

✅ きのう本を読んだ。

kinō hon o yonda

Correct: 読む → 読んだ (む → んだ).

❌ 週末、京都に行いた。

shūmatsu, Kyōto ni iita

Incorrect: 行く does not take いた.

✅ 週末、京都に行った。

shūmatsu, Kyōto ni itta

Correct: 行く is the exception — it takes った.

❌ 駅で友達を待ちた。

eki de tomodachi o machita

Incorrect: a つ-verb doesn't take plain た.

✅ 駅で友達を待った。

eki de tomodachi o matta

Correct: 待つ → 待った (つ → った).

❌ 朝、コーヒーを作りた。

asa, kōhī o tsukurita

Incorrect: a godan る-verb doesn't take plain た.

✅ 朝、コーヒーを作った。

asa, kōhī o tsukutta

Correct: 作る → 作った (る → った).

Key takeaways

Ichidan: drop る, add た — 食べる → 食べた. No exceptions.
Irregulars: する → した, 来る → 来た (きた). Memorize these two.
Godan: the ending fuses with the stem (音便); learn the full sound-change table.
Shortcut: te-form with the vowel swapped to a — 〜て → 〜た, 〜で → 〜だ.

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