How do you express "did" + verb in Japanese?


For instance, you can ask someone:

> Did you go to the store today?

or

> You went to the store today?

Would those both be translated as: 今日、乾物屋{かんぶつや}に行ったか？

Or is there another way to express did + Verb?

Note: how do you do furigana + kanji on this board?




> １ Did you go to the store today?
>
> ２ You went to the store today?
>
> ３ 今日、店{みせ}には行った(か)？ (I took the liberty of adding `は`)

(1) is a normal English question; you've been taught that (3) is the way to
form normal questions in Japanese; so therefore, the equivalent of (1) in
Japanese is (3), right? Then surely, you have the answer to your question
already?

Maybe I can get closer to what's troubling you, though.

The questions you're asking in Japanese, such as (3), would normally be
structured in English as (1) and not (2) -- yet the Japanese grammatical
structure resembles (2) more closely than (1), since the word order doesn't
change at all from an ordinary statement. This makes you want to look for a
different structure, maybe one that is closer to (1) instead.

However, you can't hope for Japanese and English sentence structures to align
in this way. Even though (3) seems to be structurally very similar to (2), it
**does not mean (2)**.

The sentence (2) in English sounds like it's seeking "confirmation", or is a
surprised statement. To represent its equivalent in Japanese, you need to add
の:

> ４ 今日、店{みせ}に行ったの(か)？

This indicates that the speaker is seeking an explanation of some aspect of
the context/environment (for instance, maybe he saw some shopping bags lying
around in an unexpected place).

This question illustrates the dangers of attempting to directly compare
Japanese and English sentence structures. When you realize that (3) looks
similar to (2) and you start thinking about how to translate (2), you should
consider that as its own problem, starting by asking yourself "what are the
nuances of this sentence in English?", rather than assuming that (2)
corresponds to (3) because it looks similar.




> １ Did you go to the store today?
>
> ２ You went to the store today?
>
> ３ 今日、店{みせ}には行った(か)？ (I took the liberty of adding `は`)

(1) is a normal English question; you've been taught that (3) is the way to
form normal questions in Japanese; so therefore, the equivalent of (1) in
Japanese is (3), right? Then surely, you have the answer to your question
already?

Maybe I can get closer to what's troubling you, though.

The questions you're asking in Japanese, such as (3), would normally be
structured in English as (1) and not (2) -- yet the Japanese grammatical
structure resembles (2) more closely than (1), since the word order doesn't
change at all from an ordinary statement. This makes you want to look for a
different structure, maybe one that is closer to (1) instead.

However, you can't hope for Japanese and English sentence structures to align
in this way. Even though (3) seems to be structurally very similar to (2), it
**does not mean (2)**.

The sentence (2) in English sounds like it's seeking "confirmation", or is a
surprised statement. To represent its equivalent in Japanese, you need to add
の:

> ４ 今日、店{みせ}に行ったの(か)？

This indicates that the speaker is seeking an explanation of some aspect of
the context/environment (for instance, maybe he saw some shopping bags lying
around in an unexpected place).

This question illustrates the dangers of attempting to directly compare
Japanese and English sentence structures. When you realize that (3) looks
similar to (2) and you start thinking about how to translate (2), you should
consider that as its own problem, starting by asking yourself "what are the
nuances of this sentence in English?", rather than assuming that (2)
corresponds to (3) because it looks similar.

