# 話していた



## 2PieRad

Hi, regarding this form of past tense, how far "back" into the past can it be used? It's also the past tense equivalent of -ている, right? (I learned this on audio, so I can't be sure of it.)

For example, 話していた（です）. From my limited understanding, this generally means _I was just in the process of talking (about...)_ Any further into the past, (a few hours, a few days) and you'd have to use something like 話しました, right? Would the ていた form be used in any other situation?

Thanks


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## Ume

There's nothing complicated.

Tom and John were talking about the history of Japan "*one minute ago / an hour ago / this morning / yesterday / when I saw them ten years ago*".

トムとジョンは、*１分前／１時間前／今朝／昨日／私が10年前に会ったとき*、日本の歴史について話していました。


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## Wacky...

What if you were not going to mention the time they were talking about the history of Japan? Would you say,  トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話していました。or just, トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話しました。.
What's the difference between 話していました and 話しました?
Does 話していました correspond to "were talking";
and 話しました to "talked?"


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## Ume

トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話していました。＝Tom and John were talking about the history of Japan.

トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話しました。＝Tom and John talked about the history of Japan.


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## Demurral

Hi!

I'm young, yes, and anybody would never think about me as a linguistic sage buuuuut... Languages are alive and they all have their own likes. Besides "time" is so "unmeasurable" (a spanish "15 days" becomes a german "14 days", for example...).

so...if you want to learn how to use better verb tenses you can't do anything but hear a loooot and put in context!! 


hope you like my advise (and follow it!! ^^)


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## 2PieRad

Thanks again for clearing it up.


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## Demurral

Hi! I've recently discovered a "use" of shite ita^^.

Maybe it's a "discovering" because of my "Spanish" brain but...

Let's say that we're talking about two other people that were once talking too.

In Spanish ( don't know if also in English) it would be OK to say  "they talked about X" (hablaban de X). But in Japanese, it's used 話していた　(they were talking, estaban hablando de). 

 Let's say that in Spanish (maybe also in English) you can (usually) use de past  simple to describe an action that was still taking place (that was "continuous"), but in Japanese you have a more hard rules, and it has to be use the continuous if the actions is continuous...


It's very complicated to explain this sort of things, isn't it?

 
See you


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## xBlackWolfx

Wacky... said:


> What if you were not going to mention the time they were talking about the history of Japan? Would you say, トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話していました。or just, トムとジョンは、日本の歴史について話しました。.
> What's the difference between 話していました and 話しました?
> Does 話していました correspond to "were talking";
> and 話しました to "talked?"


 
It has no grammatical difference, Japanese talk differntly to people they are unfamiliar with or are 'outside their group'. You do this by affixing ーいます　to the end of a word. So 話す when spoken to a stranger is 話します　The past tense is of course ーいました. The -te form has no alternate form, so it stays the same, meaning that 話している　becomes 話しています.

There is no difference in meaning, just politeness level.

Since I'm not familiar with your native language, I cant give you an example you could understand easily, but in European languages, they do something similar. The difference is that Japanese alter their verb and use different pronouns while Europeans just use a more polite form of 'you'. 

Japanese however also use different pronouns based on their gender. But this is a purely cultural thing that has no gramatical reinforcement and tends to change from year to year. For example, 私　is normally given as a gender-neutral word for 'I' but I believe it's becoming more and more of a purely female word now (when pronounced as わたし　anyway, わたくし　is still gender-neutral I believe). This is what wikipedia says if you look on their article about pronouns.

If you're so unfamiliar with politeness levels in Japanese, it'd a be great idea for you to start looking into it now. Japanese make a really big deal out of it. And by the way, using casual speech (non -imasu form) is very rude to strangers but using polite speech (-imasu form) with your closest friends is being sarcastic. It's really complicated and a good idea to learn it right away.


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## Flaminius

xBlackWolfx said:


> [The pair 話していました and 話しました] has no grammatical difference, Japanese talk differntly to people they are unfamiliar with or are 'outside their group'. You do this by affixing ーいます　to the end of a word. So 話す when spoken to a stranger is 話します　The past tense is of course ーいました. The -te form has no alternate form, so it stays the same, meaning that 話している　becomes 話しています.
> 
> There is no difference in meaning, just politeness level.


話していました and 話しました do not have different politeness levels.  They are both polite (or out-group) references to past events by virtue of _-imashita_ (< _-imasu_).  A grammatical difference is brought about by the stems to which _-imasu_ is affixed:
hanas + -imasita —> hanashimashita (polite past)
hanasite (_te_-form) + imasita —> hanashiteimashita (polite past progressive)

 A fuller paradigm including tense/aspect and speech level distinctions is below (Those terms such as present, past, progressive may be inaccurate in the light of linguistics but are meant to be approximation for speakers of European languages):

I. PEER SPEECH

a. present
simple: hanasu
progressive: hanashiteiru

b. past
simple: hanashita
progressive: hanashiteita


II. POLITE SPEECH

a. present
simple: hanashimasu
progressive: hanashimashita

b. past
simple: hanashimashita
progressive: hanashiteimashita


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## xBlackWolfx

I thought he had asked if there was any grammatical difference between 'hanashite imashita' and 'hanashite ita'. That's what I was talking about.


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