What Was The Purpose?
“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.” - William Blake
The second grammar review + た-Form we’re going to look at is ため, which you didn’t do too long ago, actually. If you’re having trouble with ため or unsure of what it is, you should probably review it really quick before moving on.
There’s two things we’re going to do with ため. The first is a simple change… i.e. changing the verb on the end to た-form:
aすし を たべる ために レストラン に いきました。
For the purpose of eating sushi, I went to the restaurant.
aすし を たべる ために レストラン に いった。
For the purpose of eating sushi, I went to the restaurant.
The only change here is the casual いきました on the end. That should be pretty easy, as long as you understand ために well enough.
The second one is a little more complicated. It involves changing the verb right before the ため, which changes a lot of the meaning of the sentence as well. It’s also a little more difficult to understand, as I think it translates to English a little funny. It’s not too bad, though – let’s look at some examples of these た-Form + ために shenanigans.
aさる が しんだ ために ZOO に いきませんでした。
Because the monkey died, I didn’t go to the zoo.
aビール を のんだ ために バス に のった。
Because I drank beer, I rode the bus.
Suddenly the meaning of ため changes a little. It sort of becomes “Because of ______” rather than “For _____” or “For the purpose of ______.” Technically the translations would be “For the purpose of I drank beer, I rode the bus” but that sounds terrible and doesn’t make much sense in English. It’s much easier to translate this to “Because I ______, I ________.” This usage of ために is going to be a bit more rare than present tense ために, but it shows up enough you should learn about it at least a little bit. This isn’t the best way to say “because of” in Japanese (we’ll learn how to do that later), though which is why it doesn’t show up as much, I believe.
To practice both of these, there is, of course, another worksheet you can use to do just that!