〜ました is the polite past form of verbs in the ます style. It means “did” or “went,” and it is used for actions that already happened. Key points: • Replace ます with ました to make the past • Polite and common in conversation • Used for completed actions • Time words often show when it happened For example, “食べます” becomes “食べました” (ate). “行きます” becomes “行きました” (went). You can add time words to make it clear: “昨日行きました” means “I went yesterday.” “先週勉強しました” means “I studied last week.” The word order stays the same; only the verb ending changes. This makes it easy to shift a present sentence into the past. Practice by taking simple ます sentences and changing ます to ました. This is one of the most useful and frequent patterns in polite Japanese.