Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

It’s two basic grammar points being used together:

食べる + たい = 食べたい (want to eat)

-い adjectives on past form = かった

Hence:

食べる → 食べたい → 食べたかった

The fact that 食べたい behaves grammaticaly as an adjective and not a verb can be a bit surprising at the beginning, but it’s actually pretty common in Japanese.

Good studies~

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Oh my word, what a donut I am. I know these constructs! I know them and conveniently/horrificly forgot them :laughing: My teacher would be horrified.

Thank you, @SyncroPC , you have stopped me going mad.

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I do wish more textbooks would mention how Japanese uses auxiliary verbs and auxiliary adjectives attached to the stem of a verb.

That’s why something like ない can be treated like a standard い adjective. It’s not a conjugation, but a 補助用言 - an auxiliary inflecting word.

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I know, right? Classic example of “making things simpler can actually make them more complicated”.

In the end, more than verbs behaving like adjectives, I feel like -い adjectives behave pretty much like verbs in Japanese. Specially when you consider that any verb in Japanese can be added before a noun to modify it.

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OK, I’ve finally had the chance to read through this and to think through the sentences I asked you about. In mathematical terms, I guess 分 is something like a ‘is proportional to’ sign. ほど is more like ‘so…that’, which can imply causation in the way you mentioned. I get it now. Thanks.

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One of my favorite things that happened recently was a guy in a server being like omg they said をしたい in my game which makes no sense since it’s an adjective. Other people were confused and he doubled down and was like “yeah u idiots, like you can’t just say を好き and you have to say が好き”. I helped him out at that point, but his confidence cracked me up.

I never really thought too much about this stuff but I can see how it would be confusing.

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I’m learning the progressive tense and saw this on BunPro:

見つけられなくて すみませんでした。
I am sorry that I was unable to find it.

Is this the negative conjunctive-て due to すみません being a verb?

Also, what are the rules for negative conjunctive-て? Is this correct for “I didn’t eat, but I was on time.”?
私は食べなくて、けど間に合った。

It’s more that ~てすみません is a set expression for apologizing for doing some action. すみません is a verb, technically, but you can also use て constructions with words that aren’t verbs.

You can’t put けど after て like that. Here you could just use 食べなかった.

What is the く doing in 見つけられなてすみませんでした。?

So just 私は食べなかった、間に合った。? Don’t I need a conjunctive-て if it’s once sentence?

なくて is the て form of ない.

見つける
見つけられる
見つけられない
見つけられなくて

No, you need けど (or something) to act as a conjunction there, but it can’t follow て. It can follow a verb in sentence ending forms.

What I said just applies if you want to use けど as a conjuction.

If you want to use て as a conjunction, then you would drop けど. However, て as a conjunction doesn’t really imply the proper nuance for what you wanted to express.

食べなくて、間に合った would mean something like “I made it because I didn’t eat.”

て has many meanings and context can determine which one it is, but without anything surrounding it the “causal relationship て” seems most obvious in this sentence.

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@HamAndYam What is the sentiment your sentence is trying to convey?
Is it “I didn’t eat, but on the bright side I made it on time” or is it as @Leebo suggested “I made it, because I didn’t eat”?

There is also the nice structure 〜てから which works directly with 〜て forms, but arranges events in time, rather than logically.

However, I’ve seen it translated to the English “since”*:
私は食べなくてから、間に合った。
Since I didn’t eat, I made it on time.
or
I didn’t eat and made it on time.
* But according to Genki at least, the “since” makes more sense if 間に合った were to define a state.

Here’s an article on 〜てから and other time expressions: Time Clauses: …とき, …てから, …後で, …前に, …あいだに, and …うちに

It wasn’t the “since” I was thinking of :confused: .

Thanks @Leebo for the clarifications. I don’t know why BunPro or Genki didn’t mention the negative て form when it was introduced. That was my guess, but I didn’t find it when I went back to look it up.

More of the former, like “I was like running late, skipped breakfast, but arrived on time”, but they seem pretty similar. I guess this is a bit confusing because the English is vague. I went to て form because I was thinking “Didn’t do X, then did Y”. Improper use of けど didn’t help.

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(I see you figured it out, but I’ll post what I was about to say anyway)

てから means “after”, not “because”. “Since” in English is ambiguous, but the Japanese is not. If you want to say “Since/Because I didn’t eat, I made it on time” you probably want 私はたべなかったから、間に合った or something along those lines.

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Yes, apologies for the blunder and thank you for the added explanation! :slight_smile: :man_facepalming:

Looks like I got caught in a translation trap after hearing 〜てから too much in anime.

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Just for fun, thought I would throw something else your way to continue our conversation earlier. Heres an example I just came across in my book where ほど is being used in the ば~ほど way. Its kinda rare by itself and I’ve only seen it after nouns, but you can see how it feels very similar to 分 in this case. Of course, you couldn’t replace it with 分 because if you did it wouldn’t make any sense grammatically, but regardless its got a similar use like you mentioned earlier.

Fun font version if you wanna try giving it a read:

"If you need help

Context: An old folktale was just talked about

この話には、いくつかの教訓が含まれている。

小さな子供にも、八丁標を出てはならないという教えは、容易に理解できるに違いない。もう少し大きくなると、自分の身よりも村のことを案じる、自己犠牲の精神を汲み取れるかもしれない。

だが、本当の教えには、実は、聡明な子供ほど気づきにくくなっているのだ。

まさか、この話の真の狙いが悪鬼の実在を説くことにあるなどと、いったい誰が考えるだろうか。

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しなかった
Where is the か coming from?
する → しない I understand
する → すった I understand
But where is the か coming from?

It’s negative past tense. しない > しなかった

(Also the past tense of する is した).

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する is quite irregular. You generally cannot apply conjugation rules to it. You just have to learn the individual forms.

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Ah, thank you. I think thats what was tripping me up.

All verbs in the negative past tense will end in なかった

exception verbs
するー>しないー>しなかった
くるー>こないー>こなかった

ichidan verbs
たべるー>たべないー>たべなかった

godan verbs
こわすー>こわさないー>こわさなかった
およぐー>およがないー>およがなかった
つくるー>つくらないー>つくらなかった

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