Lesson 7 of 24
Yesterday's Perfectly Normal Disaster
about 14 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Say what happened and what did not happen yesterday.
Words this lesson teaches
- きのう
- yesterday
- せんしゅう
- last week
- つきます
- arrives
- やすみ
- closed, a day off
- わすれます
- forgets
- おわります
- finishes, ends
- まちます
- waits
- もんだい
- a problem
- インク
- ink
- もう
- already
- まだ
- not yet, still
What it explains
ました and ませんでした
The past of ます is ました, and the past negative is ませんでした — the negative ません with でした stuck on the end. つきました it arrived, つきませんでした it did not. Four forms cover every polite verb you will use at this level: ます, ません, ました, ませんでした.
でした for nouns and な adjectives
です becomes でした: みせは やすみでした, the shop was closed. The negative is じゃありませんでした, which is long and entirely regular. い adjectives do something different — いそがしかったです — which is worth recognising now and drilling later.
もう and まだ — recognise for now
もう つきました means it has already arrived; まだです means not yet. まだ usually pairs with a negative or stands alone as a complete answer. You will hear both constantly in status updates, which is exactly what the next lesson is about.
The scene itself is in the app.
Lesson one of this track is free to read in full. From lesson two on, the story, the audio and the review are part of a free account.
