Can a verb itself be nominalized?

What Nominalization ways I know is: の、こと, but is there any other way? Like… ケーキを食べが好きです。 Or does this sound unnatural? does this form exist? If it does, can someone please explain it to me? Like whether it can be used in formal situations or not, how to use it, and when to use it…
help please. I have recently asked a question on a different platform on how to say this sentence “扉を閉めるのを忘れないでください。” but one of the replies told me that I should be saying it like this “扉を閉め忘れないでください” so is this a way of nominalizing a verb? 閉めるinto 閉め? Help

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The example you used 「ケーキを食べが好きです」definitely feels unnatural to me. But I think nominalization works for some verbs. Like for example 偏る has the nominalized 偏り, which is definitely a noun (Wanikani even teaches it as one). My guess is that whether you can do it or not depends on the verb, and you just need to get an intuition for it. But generally こと is the way to go about it.

Oh and for the second example you have, it’s worth noting that sometimes you can use the stems of verbs to string them together. While I would never use 食べ directly in a sentence, I could easily use 食べ終わる as a new verb that means to finish eating.

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To add to the above, you might have learnt that the infinitive / continuative / (masu) stem form of verbs (e.g., 食べ、聞き) can be used to chain clauses together “do X and Y”. However, in this case, with わすれる, it’s special. There are two special cases:

  • There are a handful of auxiliary verbs that attach to the infitinive of other verbs to make compounds; it’s the case for わすれる. See here for a list of productive auxiliary verbs: https://db4.ninjal.ac.jp/vvlexicon/en/ (under “Syntactic and Lexical Compound Verbs”)
  • There are special combinations that you need to learn and are in the dictionary. For example, おきわすれる is not “forget to leave something” but “leave something somewhere and forget about it”.
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I don’t quite get it… but… which one is more correct to use? “扉を閉めるのを忘れないでください” or “扉を閉め忘れないでください”?
And if the second one can be used, can someone send me a link to an explanation of the usage of that form?

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Dropping the る can indeed nominalise 食べる. E.g. 締める → 締め as in a hold or fastening. Often this nominalisation happens alongside a compounding of words, as in 三角食べ.

xケーキを食べが好きです。 is grammatically incorrect, though.

If you wanted to use nominalisation:
ケーキの食べが好きです。
Or somewhat better:
ケーキ食べが好きです。

However the above still sounds quite unnatural, I think. For completeness,
ケーキを食べるのが好きです。
is better.

Edit: To be clear: the 閉め in 閉め忘れる is not a nominalisation. It is 連用形.

What about… for example, 漫画の描き方をならわたい。the 漫画の描きpart, is it correct?
Can I then conclude that when I nomilaze the verb in that way, I don’t use を, but use のinstead?

Also, is there an English version for the page you linked? I really would like to learn this type of sentence form please​:pray::pray:

連用形 + 方 (かた) is a way of forming a word that means “how to _____” or “the way of ____ing”.

So 描き方 is “how to draw” and 漫画の描き方 is “how to draw manga.” And so 漫画の描き方をならいたい is “I want to learn how to draw manga.” I changed what I assume was a typo in ならいたい.

This can’t be generalized to usage beyond attaching 方 to it.

More examples

食べ方 the way of eating, table manners
言い方 the way of saying, phrasing
見方 the way of seeing, viewpoint

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It could, but ケーキを食べ isn’t the case. There are some verbs that can be nominalized by being its stem form, but not every verb can be nominalized this way.

stem form

ex)

休み = time off, break

はじめ = beginning

Adj + stem form

ex)
早起き = waking up early
*早く+ 起きます minus ます

Compound verb stem form

ex)
降り始め = starting to rain/snow

作り置き = making something in advance

It might appear so, but 閉め忘れる is just a compound verb “forgetting to close”. 閉め can’t be used as a noun “to close.”

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I realise this is going completely off topic but the Wikipedia post on 三角食べ is blowing my mind a little.

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My memory might be failing but I think we discuss this in the past here but not sure… The article I remember is the one below:

It is well-known that the Japanese verbal stem can be deverbalized. Traditionally, this usage is commonly referred to as renyoo-meisi among Japanese linguists, as the stem form of the Japanese verb is classified as the renyoo-kei … However, there are a number of verbs whose stem forms do not function as nominals …

The Verbal Stem Form of Japanese
Author(s): Kaoru Ohta
Source: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Nov., 1995),pp. 79-126
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Japanese
Stable URL: The Verbal Stem Form of Japanese on JSTOR

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