Understanding "何をしてたと思う"


The sentence

> 何をしてたと思う？

apparently translates to

> What do you think I've been doing

**Questions:**

  1. What is と doing here (and/or how is it literally being translated)? If we remove it, does the meaning of the sentence change?

  2. According to a dictionary, "してた" is the past tense て form of する. But I thought the て form was "tenseless", and had to be combined with other verbs in order to achieve, e.g., the paste tense?




  1. と is being used as a "quotation" particle. It is used to quote what was said before it to nominalize for the verb after it. 思う needs the quote particle と to point out what it is that's being thought. ([what's being thought]と思う and not [what's being thought]思う)
  2. してた is a colloquial spelling/pronunciation of していた. The past continuous form of a verb is created by taking the ―て form and adding いた or いました (the past tense form of いる.) In casual spoken Japanese the い is sometimes dropped in the continuous forms of verbs (e.g. て form + いる conjugation) because it's easier to pronounce.




  1. と is being used as a "quotation" particle. It is used to quote what was said before it to nominalize for the verb after it. 思う needs the quote particle と to point out what it is that's being thought. ([what's being thought]と思う and not [what's being thought]思う)
  2. してた is a colloquial spelling/pronunciation of していた. The past continuous form of a verb is created by taking the ―て form and adding いた or いました (the past tense form of いる.) In casual spoken Japanese the い is sometimes dropped in the continuous forms of verbs (e.g. て form + いる conjugation) because it's easier to pronounce.

