What is the difference between ate and eaten ? Summary of everyone's answers

Here is a list of questions and answers on HiNative about What is the difference between ate and eaten ?. HiNative allows you to ask native speakers all about English (US).

"He has eaten cake"
(he recently ate cake)
This can't mean he ate cake yesterday or last week. It has a nuance of happening only a short time ago.

"He ate cake."
This can refer to any time in the past.

Well it's not so much that one is more recent as it is the difference in the past tense and the past participle. Participles can be used in a descriptive way also referred to as the passive voice (Cake was eaten at the party) where the past tense only works as the verb part (I ate too much cake yesterday). There are subtleties but in general eaten = 食べられた and ate = 食べた。
And I'm sorry to go off topic for a sec but there aren't PMs on this site: is jessenstein a reference to a hilarious series of YouTube videos about Terraria? My curiosity is killing me here ^^

Naw i've been using the name "Jessenstein" since before YouTube was even founded. :3

Btw, you know he's only a beginner-intermediate right? If he wanted complex answers he'd be reading them out of a college textbook. :D

Short and sweet!

みなさん、ありがとう。
ただ、初心者なので日本語で説明をして下さると助かるんですが。。

eaten は eat の過去分詞で
ate は eat の過去形です。

現在形 : I eat bread.
パンを食べる。
過去形 : I ate bread yesterday.
昨日、パンを食べた。
過去分詞 : I have eaten bread.
既に食べた。と言うようなニュアンスです。
または、パンを食べたことがある。と言う意味もあります。

他の動詞で説明すると
I do my homework.
宿題をする。
I did my homework.
宿題をした。
I have done my homework.
(既に)宿題をした。
(とっくに宿題を済ませた)

* have(had)+過去分詞で文を構成します。

かずみさん
すごく分かり易い説明でした!
ありがとうございます。

ちなみに、already(既に)の表現で過去形のateを使うと、etenの様なニュアンスになるんですか?

"Eaten" is the past participle and "ate" is the simple past of the verb "eat".

I have never eaten Japanese food .

I ate Italian food last night.

"eaten" is used in passive voice (was and were), where the person who ate the food is not mentioned.
"ate" is when you mention who is the one eating the food.
For example: "She ate the sandwich." and "The sandwich was half eaten." Notice how in the second sentence, they did not specify who ate the sandwich, but in the first sentence they did.
Does that make sense?

Highly-rated answerer

@alina365 yeeah, thank u :)

@zswiner6236 no problem :)

Highly-rated answerer

@zswiner6236 also, look at @chicao 's reply. They mentioned something I forgot. "Have eaten" and "has eaten." Sorry about that lol

Highly-rated answerer

Eg. I ate my lunch.
I have eaten my lunch.

“ate” can be used as a verb directly but “eaten” needs an auxiliary verb before it such as has, have etc.

THANK YOU! :)

@Parrot_ Sure! How can I help you?

Tag me whenever you need me. I’ll try my best to help you!

Eaten has to be paired with have or has. I have eaten dinner already. She has eaten all of the cake.

Ate can be by itself. I ate dinner already. She ate all of the cake.

Highly-rated answerer

@fishyrobb
It can also have "was" before:
The fish was eaten by a cat.

Highly-rated answerer

@Giovanna-0273939 Yes, but that has a different meaning entirely. It describes the condition of the fish rather than an action by the fish.

Highly-rated answerer

"Eaten" is the past participle, "ate" is the past tense.

"eaten" is used with perfect tenses e.g "I have/had eaten", while "ate" is used with simple past.

Highly-rated answerer

can u kindly make the examples

@ntokozovilakazi01

"I had eaten dinner before she called me" (past perfect)
"She has eaten sushi before" (present perfect)
"We ate dinner early last night" (past simple)
"They will have eaten by 5pm" (future perfect)
"Had you eaten before we got home?" (past perfect)
"You ate a lot of cake at the party" (past simple)

Highly-rated answerer

Grammar tense.
He ate the food.
He has eaten the food.
has is the participle

Ate is past participle
eaten is simple past



'Ate' is Simple Past tense. eg I ate dinner yesterday.

'Eaten' is the past participle. eg I'm not hungry. I have eaten dinner.

Ate is use in past tense and eaten in perfect tenses

@xiangzhijiang82: "Have you eaten, today?"
"Yes, I ate something a little while ago. Tomorrow I will eat more."
"Good. I'm happy to hear that you are eating."

@graybedroll thank you so much🤭

ate is the past form of eat
eaten is the past participle of eat

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