70075
Here is a sentence that I came across in Yotsuba, 恵那が結婚して出て行く時に使おうと思ってたんだ. I
believe the English translation would be something like, "When Ena (恵那) gets
married and leaves, I think I'll use this. I know that と思って means that
something has been thought of for some duration but what does the たんだ stand
for? I believe んだ is the connective copula for explanatory purposes. So the
translation would be something like "It is that, I think I will use this when
Ena goes off and gets married." But why is た used? Is this acting as something
for past tense or is it needed to connect んだ somehow? Could it mean, "I had
thought"?

Any help would be appreciated. I'm starting to notice these types of past
tense uses more but still can't 100% wrap my head around them.
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2019-08-14T01:42:01.670
70074
2019-08-14T02:06:29.310
33404
question
grammar
What is the たんだ in と思ってたんだ for the sentence in question?
思ってたんだ is a progressive-past form followed by explanatory-の. So it translates
to "(It is that) I was thinking ～". Here's the breakdown:

  * **思う** : to think
  * **思っている** : to be thinking (progressive)
  * **思っていた** : was thinking (past progressive)
  * **思ってた** : was thinking (ている → てる, ていた → てた; see [this chart](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/18159/5010))
  * **思ってたんだ** : 思ってた + [explanatory-no](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5398/5010) + copula

> 使おうと思ってたんだ。  
>  I was thinking I would use this.

In non-casual settings, 思ってたんだ should be 思って **い** た **の** だ or 思って **い** た
**の** です.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-14T02:06:29.310
70075
2019-08-14T02:06:29.310
5010
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answer