Adjectives.. I ate a tasty fish

[Nasta]

I am aware that there are 2 types of adjectives - "i" adjectives and "na" adjectives. And that the ending of i-adjectives changes in the past tense - "sakana wa oishikatta desu" = the fish was tasty.

My question is, would it matter if you were talking about a tasty fish in the past? Would it be:
a ) "oishii sakana o tabemashita", or
b ) "oishikatta sakana o tabemashita" ?

Or something completely different altogether (I am self-taught and not confident in the words i say)?

ps. please can you reply in romaji, my computer doesnt cope with japanese fonts..

Arigato..

[skrhgh3b]

i think the only difference is simply between the concept of "i ate a delicious fish" versus "the fish i ate was delicious." obviously, the translations get a little convoluted in english, but i think you get the point. if i'm wrong myself, someone correct me.

[AaRoN]

I not 100% but skrhgh3b is right B)

[Nasta]

So both "oishii sakana o tabemashita" and "oishikatta sakana o tabemashita" are gramatically correct, but the first sentance means "i ate a delicious fish" and the second means "the fish i ate was delicious" ?

[Schattenjedi]

First one means I ate a delicious fish. Second one means I ate a fish that was delicious. It seems to me that putting the adjective in the past tense is unnecessary, but OK.

[Mukade]

Nasta wrote:
So both "oishii sakana o tabemashita" and "oishikatta sakana o tabemashita" are gramatically correct, but the first sentance means "i ate a delicious fish" and the second means "the fish i ate was delicious" ?

The first sentence is correct, the second one is not. The only time you would ever conjugate an adjective is when it comes at the end of a sentence (as in your original example of sakana ga oishikatta desu.).

oishii sakana o tabemashita would indeed be "I ate a delicious fish," but to say "The fish I ate was delicious," you would say tabeta sakana wa oishikatta desu (although in speech most, if not all, Japanese would use the first pattern and not the second).

You never conjugate an adjective before attaching it to a noun (as in oishikatta sakana).

[skrhgh3b]

seriously? tonight i wrote to my sensei, 「面白かったお話ですね。」 and i would never have wrote such a construction without googling it first. to say that you never conjugate an adjective before modifying a noun sounds a little too extreme to me. but if she ends up correcting me, i'll point it out here as well.

[Harisenbon]

Like mukade said, you can't conjugate the adjective before attaching it to a verb. It sounds really strange. [oishii sakana wo tabemashita] would be "I ate delicious fish"

Skrhg, the phrase should have been 面白い話ですね。　or, if you want to talk about the past 面白い話だったね

[skrhgh3b]

「面白かった話」 gets nearly 12,000 hits on google. although i'll admit 「面白い話」 gets 558,000 (^^;

[Harisenbon]

We need to stop using Google numbers as a way to judge grammar validity. I noticed that almost all of the pages that had 面白かった話 were blogs. It will be a cold day in hell before I recognize that kewl skillz (32,300 hits) is correct english.

[Kates]

After reading that post, I Googled for "interested conversation" and "interest conversation" and got a few hits. =/ I agree with Hari-san. Googling doesn't prove anything either way.

[Nasta]

Ah, it makes sense now. So "is delicious" - "oishii desu" becomes a kind of verb, ne?

[Harisenbon]

no, it's still an adjective. The verb is desu. Just like in english, when you say "It is delicious"" delcious" is an adjective, while "is" is the verb

[skrhgh3b]

ok, ok... i'll go find a hole to crawl into because i used bad japanese lol

[Harisenbon]

Meh, I use horrible Japanese all the time. You make a mistake, you try to learn from it.

If you don't learn from it, you're like me, and go complain to your wife about how crappy your Japanese is. *laugh*