datta だった meaning??
 

hello everyone!

i have a question, i wonder what "datta だった" means.
it appears in this sentence:

Zutto kanashimasete bakari datta

so i dont know if datta is a verb a noun or i dont know oô i couldnt find it anywhere in a dictionary.

so what does datta means??

'datta' is the past tense of 'da'. It doesn't behave itself as a normal verb. It expresses a state of being. You could translate 'da' with 'is' or 'are', and 'datta' with 'was' or 'were'.

だった = past tense for です. I don't have to explain what です means, do I?

No it's not. 'desu' is the polite expression for state of being. The past tense of 'desu' is 'deshita'.

'da' is considered to be informal, because it's 'stronger'. If you use 'da' at the end of a phrase you declare that it IS that way, which is considered to be more informal.

貴方の過去の書き込みを見れば、日本語初心者であると 判断しますがいかがですか。もし私より日本語に精通し ていると思っているなら日本語で反論して見て下さい。

I sure want to believe you have more acquaintance in Japanese then I have. But that doesn't mean you should give misleading information.

'datta' is NOT the past tense of 'desu'. Even if I would be a Japanese beginner student, I would still know this. This is basic stuff..

DATTA is the informal, past-tense form of DESU.

よくも不安定の足場の上で、調子のいいこと書いてらっ しゃるね！ほら、「だった」というと、「であった」の 省略でしょう？「であった」は明らかに「である」の過 去形でしょう。そんで、「です」はその敬語動詞の「ま す」がついた、「であります」の省略ですから、「であ る＝であります」とはなかなか言えないと思いますよ、 文法的に。敬語レベルでは、違います。

もちろん、「だ」より「です」を知っている初心者にと っては、だったという言葉はですという言葉の過去形だ と言ってもあまり悪影響がないでしょう。生徒の理解に もつながるでしょう。だた、文法的に言うと、ちょっと 間違っていると思います。

if da is the informal version of desu and datta is the past tense of da which is the informal form of desu then datta IS past tense informal form of desu.

This man speaks the truth.

Casual, past form of Desu

doesnt datta mean was?

yes, or 'were' as 'datta' can also be plural.

Mnhm?! だった is only a notation of past events or events that could have passed had they, uh, passed. But singularity/plurality is in no way present here, as it is in no way present in most of the utterances from this wretched language. :rolleyes:

example:

私は綺麗だった。

I beautiful was

彼らは綺麗だった。

They beautiful where

Hrm, you just introduced singularity/plurality via ら -- that has nothing to do with the copula that is the topic of discussion here. Unless I missed something somewhere...

I think I slightly missformulated it. With saying 'datta' can be plural, I merely want to say it can be used together with plural nouns as stated in my example.

Sorry for the missunderstanding, but I see why you got confused.

Ah, I see. Sorry about that! :vsign: