それは彼の過去に

[amaravati]

What is the role of に in this sentence? Does それは彼の過去に translate to "That is in his past" or "That is his past". If it is the latter, then is it perfectly fine to say それは彼の過去 "That is his past" without に?

[IkimashoZ]

ALC entry for 過去に

I'm betting it's the former.

[amaravati]

Alright I hate to make another thread to spam the board so I am just going to ask another question on the thread that I have made.

俺は腹が減ったんだけど. What is the function of んだ in this sentence?

I understand that when asking somebody a question you can use さむいんですか when you have a clue to the situation. In this case you are assuming the person is feeling cold, because you see that he/she is shivering. However I don't get what んだ is doing in this statement 俺は腹が減ったんだけど

[mandolin]

See if this page helps. It's under the heading "The Affirmation Suffix" about half way down the page.

[nprz]

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/particles3.html#part5

I think it is a decent explaination

[KeroGero]

「んだ」, or 「のだ」, means you're explaining a situation that might or might not be obvious. In the case of the sentence you asked about, without the 「んだ」 ending, the sentence is simply, "I've gotten hungry". With the 「んだ」 ending, it's explaining, something like, "(well, ya see...) it's that I've gotten hungry"...

[amaravati]

Can somebodyclarify my first question

[InsanityRanch]

amaravati wrote:
What is the role of に in this sentence? Does それは彼の過去に translate to "That is in his past" or "That is his past". If it is the latter, then is it perfectly fine to say それは彼の過去 "That is his past" without に?

The problem is, that sentence no verb.

[IkimashoZ]

amaravati wrote:
Can somebodyclarify my first question

In Japanese they'll leave off the verb in casual statements, advertisements, etc. Just like we use sentence framents in the same way. This sentence probably only makes sense in context. What you've literally got there, according to the link I gave you is, "As for that [whatever the person being talked to has been talking about], in that guy's past". Whatever it was that actually happened in his past is unclear because we're not given a verb. If you can provide more of the surrounding context for the utterance, it would probably help people answer your question better.