It Was Not (じゃありませんでした)
“We live in deeds, not years; In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs…” – Aristotle
Here’s your chapter vocabulary (which you should already feel comfortable with, right?). We’ll use some of this vocab to practice じゃありませんでした.
Chapter Vocabulary
| Hiragana | English |
|---|---|
| こうえん | park |
| じしょ | dictionary |
| ちかてつ | subway |
| おてあらい | bathroom |
| しお | salt |
| つくえ | desk |
| さとう | sugar |
| はこ | box |
| しゃしん | picture |
| こども | child |
Now, if you thought that じゃありません was a mouthful… well, this one will be a little more than a mouthful. Lucky for you, though, you know both parts of it. Let’s take a look.
じゃありません ＝ it is not
でした ＝ was
じゃありません ＋ でした ＝ It was not
Makes a lot of sense, right? By combining “it is not” and “it was” you get “it was not.” Oh, and to make things simpler, it’s used in the exact same way as です, でした, and じゃありません. Let’s take a look at some examples…but first, some wisdom from Bruce Lee.