〜だ (da) - The 'copula' : expresses conditions. X is Y.
--- Examples ---
犬だ！[inu da!]
It's a dog!
イギリス人です。
I am English.
それはなんですか
What is that?
あの人は誰でしたか。 deshita
Who was that person?
田中さんではありませんでした。
(That) wasn't Mr Tanaka.
猫だった。
(That) was a cat.
犬じゃない。
(That) is not a dog.
きつねじゃなかった？[ kitsuneja nakatta?]
Wasn't it a fox?
まだプロじゃないです。
I'm not a Pro yet.
イギリス人でロンドンに住んでます。
(I'm) English and live in London.
田中さんがこの問題は難しすぎるだと言った。
Mr. Tanaka said, 'this problem is too difficult.'
--- Comments ---
'犬だ' is something a young kid might say on seeing a dog. (contributor:
Amatuka)
Note the particle は is _said_ 'wa' but (depending on romaji system used)
may be written 'ha'.
The kana わ on the other hand is always said and written 'wa'.
(contributor: Amatuka)
Note that the Xは of XはYです is very often omitted if it is known from
context. (contributor: Amatuka)
An interesting Japanese page on です can be found
here. (contributor: Amatuka)
寒いでした is awkward for me. Is it because I am not young enough? :(
寒かったでした。is more natural. (contributor: Miki)
I would recommend asking around among Japanese. 寒いでした is not
used by native speakers - even young ones, though しないです is.
(contributor: Eeker)
寒かったでした is awkward becase 寒かった already talks about
past and adding でした which also indicate something of past is
redundant. 寒かったです would be proper.
(contributor: bamboo4)
bamboo4 you are right. 寒かったです。is proper. (contributor: anon)
Right - 寒かったでした is not used by native speakers, but not just
because of a redundancy in the expression of the past tense. It is because
when you have an い-adjective, you do not conjugate the past tense into
the です, you conjugate it into the adjective. Note that I was referring
to 寒いでした (the example the author wrote in to this page), not
寒かったでした, but because of what I stated, both are non-native
utterances ('wrong'). (contributor: Eeker)
sorry, I am a native speaker.^^; (contributor: anon)
Sorry, I am also a native speaker. (contributor: bamboo4)
So we know that は should be read wa, but somehow no one changes this
page to reflect this. I wonder why. (contributor: Mitokomun)
I always found this 'tense' for adjectives confusing. guess we dont have a
past tense of 'cold' in english. colded?
NG: 寒い でした : cold , it was
OK: 寒かった です: colded , it is
(contributor: dc)
Mitokomun > romanized japanese textbooks that I have seen always write は
as 'ha' even when they know it should be pronounced 'wa'.
To make it even more confusing, there are occasions where it is pronounced
'wa' too...
Maybe someone else can explain why this is, but we are sticking to the
standard romanization method. I guess I got used to it but it really threw
me at first.
check the page for more. (contributor: dc)
寒い でした is incorrect.
寒かった is ok.
寒かった です is politer because of the word です which expresses
the standard polite form.
犬だ is ok, all Japs say that. And if you change だ into です, it
shows your politeness (contributor: Unnamed)
For understanding the logic behind the copula transformations across
tenses, affirmative/negative form etc... it helps to fall back to a vision
of だ as the contraction of the canonic (formal) form である.
canonic contraction
である だ
であります です
であった だった
でありました でした
であろう だろう
でありましょう でしょう
You can then mostly rebuild the whole conjugation table by combining that
with the following:
- は is (generally) appended to で for the negative form: では,
contracted to じゃ in less formal situations
- conjugation of ある: negative plain form of 5段 verb ある is
い-adjective ない, polite form of 5段 verb ある is irregular verb
ござる
- standard understanding of 5段 verb and い-adjective conjugations
(contributor: Max)
In the example #879 the romanized イギリス人 should be igirisujin.
Also, if 住んで is the -te form of sumu, what does the form
住んでます do? I always see 住んでいます. (contributor:
balrog-kun)
そのex #5524
はちゃう。「田中さんがこの問題は難しすぎるだと言った。」ってゆうより「田中さんがこの問題は難しすぎるって言った」ってゆった方がええやろ。
(contributor: フリザ)
So, all conjugations of the copula are derived from contractions of
である and ではある (for negative tenses). In the negative present
and past possible tenses, the conjugations are ないでしょう and
なかったでしょう. Why can't they also become
ではないでしょう and ではなかったでしょう? Also, why
can't the plain past and negative possible tenses be contracted from
ではないだろう and ではなかっただろう to
じゃないだろう and じゃなかっただろう? (contributor: karamu
san)
Re Mitokomun and dc's comments on は/wa/ha:
I just checked about 20 text books/dictionaries. Without exception they all
romanize the particle は as 'wa'. The only place I have ever come across
the particle は written 'ha' is on the Internet. I presume this is due to
cases where computers have done automatic transcriptions of hiragana to
romaji without regard for the grammatical context. (contributor: Sumofan)
balrog-kun is right about example #879. イギリス人 should be romanized
as igirisujin and not igirujin. (contributor: lstep)
The copula verb is fun. I can help about when to use da as I teach Japanese
at www.freewebs.com/kanjiwebs/ (contributor: IMABI)
--- View this entry online ---
http://www.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=da
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