How to Say "Happened" in Japanese

起こった

okotta

起こった (okotta) is the Japanese way to say happened.

This verb is used for events, phenomena or accidents that occur, rather than for human-initiated actions like 'doing' something.

How does it change in a sentence?

起こった is the past tense of the intransitive verb 起こる.

okotta

The kanji in 起こる (to happen/occur) is the same as the one used in the word for 'to wake up' or 'to rouse' someone from sleep.
The phrase 何が起こった is often replaced by どうした in daily conversation. While both ask what happened, どうした focuses on the current state or emotion of the person being asked.
While 起こる describes an event happening, if you want to say a person 'happened' to do something by chance, you would use たまたま instead.

何が起こったの？
What happened?
This sentence is useful for asking what happened using the form 起こった.
Tatoeba #188031 by tommy_san, translation #375822 by megamanenm
何が起こったんだ？
What has happened?
Tatoeba #188025 by bunbuku, translation #2254558 by CK
悲劇は突然起こった。
The tragedy happened suddenly.
This sentence is useful for describing how a tragedy happened using the form 起こった.
Tatoeba #85937 by bunbuku, translation #317774 by CM
変更がおこったので、会議は延期されます。
The meeting will be postponed as a change occurred.
昨日、面白いことが起こったよ！
Something interesting happened yesterday!
君の話を聞くと、次々と不思議なことが起こったみたいだね。
Hearing your story, it seems like one strange thing after another happened.
昨日、京都で大きな地震がおこった。
A big earthquake happened in Kyoto yesterday.
72 more sentences on Tatoeba

Yui and Hiroto are talking about a news report.

結衣 Yui

昨日、大きな事故が起こったみたいだよ。
Kinou, ookina jiko ga okotta mitai da yo.
It looks like a big accident happened yesterday.
大翔 Hiroto

えっ、どこで起こったの？
E, doko de okotta no?
What, where did it happen?
結衣 Yui

駅の近くで起こったんだって。
Eki no chikaku de okotta n datte.
I heard it happened near the station.
大翔 Hiroto

それは大変だったね。
Sore wa taihen datta ne.
That must have been terrible.

Sources

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