Expressing state-of-being

posted by tae kim

Declaring something is so and so using 「だ」

One of the trickiest part of Japanese is that there is no verb for the state-of-being like the verb "to
be" in English. You can, however, declare what something is by attaching the Hiragana character
「だ」 to a noun or na-adjective only. (We will learn about na-adjectives in the section on adjectives
later.)
Declaring that something is so using 「だ」
 Attach 「だ」 to the noun or na-adjective
Example: 人＋だ＝人だ

Examples
1. 人 【ひと】 - person
2. 学生 【がく・せい】 - student
3. 元気 【げん・き】 - healthy; lively
※Used as a greeting to indicate whether one is well
1. 人だ。
Is person.
2. 学生だ。
Is student.
3. 元気だ。
Is well.
Seems easy enough. Here's the real kicker though.

A state-of-being can be implied without using 「だ」!

You can say you're doing well or someone is a student without using 「だ」 at all. For example,
below is an example of a very typical greeting among friends. Also notice how the subject isn't even
specified when it's obvious from the context.

Typical casual greeting

A: 元気？
A: (Are you) well?

B: 元気。
B: (I'm) well.
So you may be wondering, "What's the point of using 「だ」?" Well, the main difference is that a
declarative statement makes the sentence sound more emphatic and forceful in order to make it
more... well declarative. Therefore, it is more common to hear men use 「だ」 at the end of
sentences.

The declarative 「だ」 is also needed in various grammatical structures where a state-of-being must
be explicitly declared. There are also times when you cannot attach it. It's all quite a pain in the butt
really but you don't have to worry about it yet.

Conjugating to the negative state-of-being

In Japanese, negative and past tense are all expressed by conjugation. We can conjugate a noun or
adjective to either its negative or past tense to say that something is not [X] or that
something was [X]. This may be a bit hard to grasp at first but none of these state-of-being
conjugations make anything declarative like 「だ」 does. We'll learn how to make these tenses
declarative by attaching 「だ」 to the end of the sentence in a later lesson.
First, for the negative, attach 「じゃない」 to the noun or na-adjective.

Conjugation rules for the negative state-of-being

 Attach 「じゃない」 to the noun or na-adjective
Example: 学生＋じゃない＝学生じゃない

Examples
1. 学生 【がく・せい】 - student
2. 友達 【とも・だち】 - friend
3. 元気 【げん・き】 - healthy; lively
※Used as a greeting to indicate whether one is well
1. 学生じゃない。
Is not student.
2. 友達じゃない。
Is not friend.
3. 元気じゃない。
Is not well.
Conjugating to the past state-of-being
We will now learn the past tense of the state-of-being. To say something was something, attach
「だった」 to the noun or na-adjective.
In order to say the negative past (was not), conjugate the negative to the negative past tense by
dropping the 「い」 from 「じゃない」 and adding 「かった」.
 Conjugation rules for the past state-of-being
1. Past state-of-being: Attach 「だった」 to the noun or na-adjective
Example: 友達＋だった ＝友達だった
2. Negative past state-of-being: Conjugate the noun or na-adjective to the negative
first and then replace the 「い」 of 「じゃない」 with 「かった」
Example: 友達じゃない → 友達じゃなかった＝友達じゃなかった

Examples
1. 学生だった。
Was student.
2. 友達じゃなかった。
Was not friend.
3. 元気じゃなかった。
Was not well.
Conjugation summary
We've now learned how to express state-of-being in all four tenses. Next we will learn some
particles, which will allow us assign roles to words. Here is a summary chart of the conjugations we
learned in this section.

Positive Negative
Non-Past 学生（だ） Is student 学生じゃない Is not student
Past 学生だった Was student 学生じゃなかった Was not student
Summary of state-of-being
 State-of-being Practice Exercises

Home » Japanese Grammar Guide » Basic Grammar » Expressing state-of-being

State-of-being Practice Exercises

posted by tae kim

Vocabulary used in this section

In the following exercises, we will practice the state-of-being conjugations we just covered. But first,
you might want to learn or review the following useful nouns that will be used in the exercises.

Kanji
To start with, I have listed the kanji you will need for the vocabulary for your convenience. The link
will take you to a diagram of the stroke order. However, it doesn't clearly show the direction (though
you can kind of tell by the animation) so you should check with a kanji dictionary if you're not sure. I
recommend practicing the kanji in the context of real words (such as the ones below).
1. 人 - person
2. 子 - child
3. 小 - small
4. 中 - middle
5. 大 - big
6. 友 - friend
7. 生 - life
8. 先 - ahead
9. 学 - study
10. 校 - school
11. 高 - high
12. 車 - car
13. 供 - accompanying
14. 達 - reach

Vocabulary

Here is the list of some simple nouns that might be used in the exercises.
1. うん - casual word for "yes" (yeah, uh-huh)
2. ううん - casual word for "no" (nah, uh-uh)
3. これ - this
4. それ - that
5. あれ - that over there
6. こう - (things are) this way
7. そう - (things are) that way
8. 人 【ひと】 - person
9. 大人 【おとな】 - adult
10. 子供 【こども】 - child
11. 友達 【ともだち】 - friend
12. 車 【くるま】 - car
13. 学生 【がくせい】 - student
14. 先生 【せんせい】 - teacher
15. 学校 【がっこう】 - school
16. 小学校 【しょうがっこう】 - elementary school
17. 中学校 【ちゅうがっこう】 - middle school
 18. 高校 【こうこう】 - high school
19. 大学 【だいがく】 - college

Conjugation Exercise 1
We are now going to practice the state-of-being conjugations in order. Take each noun and
conjugate it to the following forms: the declarative, negative state-of-being, past state-of-being, and
negative past state-of-being.

Sample: 人 ＝ 人だ、人じゃない、人だった、人じゃなかった
1. これ

declarative = これだ
negative = これじゃない
past = これだった
negative-past = これじゃなかった
2. 大人

declarative = 大人だ
negative = 大人じゃない
past = 大人だった
negative-past = 大人じゃなかった
3. 学校

declarative = 学校だ
negative = 学校じゃない
past = 学校だった
negative-past = 学校じゃなかった
4. 友達

declarative = 友達だ
negative = 友達じゃない
past = 友達だった
negative-past = 友達じゃなかった
5. 学生

declarative = 学生だ
negative = 学生じゃない
past = 学生だった
 negative-past = 学生じゃなかった

Conjugation Exercise 2
In this second exercise, we are really going to test your conjugation knowledge as well as the
vocabulary by translating some simple English sentences.
Please note that while the positive, non-past state-of-being can be implied, for the purpose of this
exercise, we will assume it's always declaratory. Don't forget that
this creates a very firm and declaratory tone.

Sample: Is student. ＝ 学生だ。

1. Is college. ＝ 大学だ。
2. Is not high school. ＝ 高校じゃない。
3. Was teacher. ＝ 先生だった。
4. Is adult. ＝ 大人だ。
5. Was not child. ＝ 子供じゃなかった。
6. This was the way it was. ＝ こうだった。
7. Wasn't that over there. ＝ あれじゃなかった。
8. Is not middle school. ＝ 中学校じゃない。
9. Is friend. ＝ 友達だ。
10. Was not car. ＝ 車じゃなかった。
11. Was this. ＝ これだった。
12. That's not the way it is. ＝ そうじゃない。
Toggle answers

Question Answer Exercise

In this last exercise, we'll practice answering very simple questions using the state-of-being. The yes
or no answer （うん or ううん） will be given and it is your job to complete the sentence. In
deciding whether to use the declaratory 「だ」, I've decided to be sexist here and assume all males
use the declaratory 「だ」 and all females use the implicit state-of-being (not the case in the real
world).

Sample:
Ｑ）　学生？
Ａ）　ううん、学生じゃない。
Ｑ１）　友達？
Ａ１）　うん、友達。 (female)
Ｑ２）　学校？
Ａ２）　ううん、学校じゃない。
Ｑ３）　それだった？
Ａ３）　ううん、それじゃなかった。
Ｑ４）　そう？ (Is that so?)
Ａ４）　うん、そうだ。 (male)
Ｑ５）　これ？
Ａ５）　ううん、それじゃない。 (object is away from the speaker)
Ｑ６）　先生だった？
Ａ６）　うん、先生だった。
Ｑ７）　小学校だった？
Ａ７）　ううん、小学校じゃなかった。
Ｑ８）　子供？
Ａ８）　うん、子供。 (female)