"That restaurant was lively."

Translation: そのレストランは賑やかでした。

[KyrokiKaze]

To me, lively is more like noisy than busy =/

[tanshin]

Busy sounds noisy to me.

[ajgateno]

Lively tends to mean bustling, i.e. busy, too (not just occupied, but really active and full of people)

[Paul826086]

I'm really not getting this lively versus busy thing. Duolingo made no effort to explain the difference between the two.

[Snailwood]

にぎやかでした in this case means "it was lively", but in English this phrase is ambiguous. it could cover both of the following scenarios:

scenario 1: a restaurant used to be popular, but not anymore, and you say "you know, in the past, it was lively".

scenario 2: you've left the busy restaurant, and you remark to your friends, "wow, that restaurant was lively". the restaurant presumably is still lively, but you are no longer there

my intuition says that でした only covers the first scenario. am I wrong? does it cover both scenarios?

[RaphaelNing]

I'm no native speaker, but I'm pretty sure scenario 2 is valid in Japanese too. The past tense (deshita) is commonly used to recount things happened in the past, without necessarily making a connection to the present.

[V2Blast]

Both interpretations are valid in Japanese.

[andresovela]

Shouldn't あのレストランはにぎやかでした be accepted too?

[V2Blast]

Yes.

[ajgateno]

Was gonna post the same thing. Used あの and got it wrong.

[gdobei]

Feb 24, 2018, あの still not accepted

[saliast]

I still dont get the 'de' imasu part. Is the de indicating a current action going on?

[Kelsey199247]

でした is the past tense for です
その人が好きでした I liked that person.

There are two groups of adjectives in japanese いand な adjectives
い:
忙しい (いそがしい)
大きい (おおきお)
小さい (ちいさいい)

な:
好きな (すきな)
きれいな
変な (へん)

It's good to know these for when you change the tenses and cunjugating.

To make the な adjectives past tense you add でした at the end.
好きでした
きれいでした
変でした

Whereas the い adjectives are more difficult. You drop the last い and add かった to the end

忙しかった
大きかった
小さかった

[V2Blast]

およいでいる is the て-form of the verb およぐ. Look up the て-form song for an easy way to remember the different て-forms for verbs.

[DebAzevedo]

If it is a verb in てform followed by います (or いる casually) yes, it indicates an ongoing action, like the -ing form in english. But in this sentence it's just でした, past of です.

[kt.1510]

The use of でした is the past form of です from memory
でいます is used when talking about owning or being in possession of animate objects such as animals