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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?
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2022-07-23T18:55:31.993
95517
2022-07-23T19:45:12.350
51280
question
translation て-form particle-と
Understanding "何をしてたと思う"
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.
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2022-07-23T19:40:44.383
95521
2022-07-23T19:40:44.383
51947
95517
answer
してた conveys that something was in some state

て form has many uses. It can be a request, manner something was done by (like
particle de), indicate sequence of events, etc. But here, it is being used to
form している. The いる is then being conjugated to いた. Then, "い抜き" (i-nuki) occurs
which is the omission of い. That's how they got to してた. いる is the one that's
in past tense here.

As for particle と, it is pretty much always used with 思う to indicate what is
being thought about.
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2022-07-23T19:45:12.350
95522
2022-07-23T19:45:12.350
48639
95517
answer