Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 6: 14/16

~た + (Noun)Verb modified noun, Relative clause

Structure

Verb[た](*) + Noun
Verb[ている](*) + Noun

(*) Only verbs in short (plain) form can modify nouns. Do not use polite-ます.

Details

  • Expression

  • Noun

  • Standard

About Verb[た・ている]+ Noun

In Japanese, if you want to describe something or someone that is performing an action, one of the ways you can do this is through a relative clause. A relative clause is when two phrases are joined into one sentence, rather than two individual sentences. The た (plain-past), or ている (continuous) form of verbs are usually used.

る-Verbs and う-Verbs follow their regular conjugation rules when making a relative clause. In the first example, we can see that 'Takashi-san is a man that lived in Tokyo', is one sentence, rather than 'Takashi-san is a man. He lived in Tokyo'. In English, words like 'that', and 'which' are used to create a relative clause. However, seeing as though these words do not exist in Japanese, the first phrase is simply attached to the noun.

Caution

The ます (polite) forms of verbs may not be used when making a relative clause.



Misc.

Examples

--:--

  • (あら)った(ふく)

    Washed clothes.

  • たくさん勉強(べんきょう)した生徒(せいと)

    A student who studied a lot.

  • 日本(にほん)()んでいる外国人(がいこくじん)

    A foreigner living in Japan.

  • 友達(ともだち)から()りたペン。

    A pen borrowed from a friend.

  • (わたし)(つく)った椅子(いす)

    A chair I made.

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Verb[た・ている]+ Noun – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (30 in total)

  • Pablunpro

    Pablunpro

    Hi!

    This grammar point may give you the reason for both. Bear in mind that the verb is 住む.

    HTH!

  • ihatethislanguage

    ihatethislanguage

    It says “Verb[た]+ Noun” but what it actually means is the た-form of the verb + noun.
    For Godan verbs, this is how you conjugate them into their た-form:

    Verb Ending た-form
    う, つ, る → った
    む, ぶ, ぬ → んだ
    → いた
    → いだ
    → した
  • prolezone

    prolezone

    I really think it should be made more clear in the reading that any verb can modify a noun, and it’s not just limited to these verb endings. Or, rather, the name of the entry should just be “Verb+Noun (Relative Clauses)” instead of “~た+Noun”. I think in general that’s an issue I have with Bunpro: a lot of the grammar entries are named after their most common example rather than the concept they’re explaining, and too much focus is given to these most common examples. At a glance this looks like the entry for the special rules of the た form, rather than the entry that explains a huge grammatical concept that encompasses all verbs and nouns.

    I haven’t gotten to this one yet but I wanted to find the entry that explained phrases like 「食べる男の人」from the examples, and I actually had to Google it to find the entry on Bunpro, rather than using Bunpro’s internal search.

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