Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese - State-of-being

Vocabulary and conjugation terms from Tae Kim's guide regarding the state-of-being in Japanese grammar.

⼈ 【ひと】

person

学⽣ 【がく・せい】

student

元気 【げん・き】

healthy; lively; used as a greeting to indicate whether one is well

友達 【とも・だち】

friend

「だ」

A declarative Hiragana character attached to a noun or na-adjective to declare that something is so.

State-of-being

A grammatical concept in Japanese that declares what something is; can be explicitly declared with 「だ」 or implied through context.

Implied state-of-being

Expressing that something is a certain way without using 「だ」, common in casual greetings among friends where the subject is often omitted.

「じゃない」

The conjugation attached to a noun or na-adjective to express the negative state-of-being (is not).

「だった」

The conjugation attached to a noun or na-adjective to express the past state-of-being (was).

「じゃなかった」

The conjugation for the negative past state-of-being (was not), formed by dropping the 「い」 from 「じゃない」 and adding 「かった」.

Declarative Statement

A sentence made more emphatic and forceful by the use of 「だ」, more commonly heard in speech by men.