There are variations in the way verbs form the past tense. They can be looked at in the following way: ...

Verbs take the dictionary form, when they are followed by MAE NI (before). Even if a sentence as a whole is in the past tense, a verb takes the dictionary form before MAE NI, though this form ...

The perfect tense is used to say what you did or what you have done in the past. To form the perfect tense you need a subject, an auxiliary verb and a past participle. Perfect tense with 'être ...

TA-form verbs indicate action in the past or the perfective aspect. That is what we did in the past or what we have done. And if we combine TA-form verbs and KOTO GA ARIMASU, we can talk about ...