How do I use two or more adjectives to describe something,

for example “A small, fast, white cat walks.” Is it as easy as “Chiisai, hayai, shiroi neko wa aruku”?

Similarly, how do I use multiple subclauses (with verbs being used as adjectives)

for example “A small cat that was found and heard…” Is it “Chiisai, mitsuketa, kiita neko”?

Thanks,

Chris

I’m sure a Japanese native will come and answer better than I, but since you’ve gotten no answer yet….

-i adj. change the -i to -kute when followed by another adjective. Chiisakute hayakute shiroi neko….

-na adj. change -na to -de. Shizuka de chiisaku shiroi neko (a quiet, small white cat).

Verbs are in the -te form when strung together (the last one indicates tense). In your example, I believe you’d need passive verbs and since I’m not sure exactly what they are…. Here is another example: watashi wo mite kiita neko (the cat who saw and heard me).

Hopefully someone else will confirm that this is true, or else I’d be happy to find out that I was wrong!

I’m on slightly shaky ground here, but I think you could say

聞いて、見つけた、小さい猫….
kiite,mitusketa, chiisai neko….

heard (conjunctive form), found, small cat

And Alexandre is definitely right about i→ku, but I think it’s na→ni in this case (I remember this as “iku? nani!?” which means “go? What!?” in Japanese.

As far as I know, “shizuka de” means “quietly” as in “shizuka de suwatte kudasai” – “please sit down quietly”.

I’m not massively confident and would like a native to come and confirm or deny all this!
There’s a good site for Japanese grammar here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/
I use it a lot.

Hi guys!

Here’s how it should go.

A small, fast, white cat walks.
Chiisakute, hayakute, shiroi neko ga aruku.
小さくて、速くて、白い猫があるく。

a small cat that was found and heard
mitsukatte kikoeta chiisai neko
見つかって聞こえた小さい猫
(Although I think it would make more sense if we switched the adjectives around as follows: kikoete mitsukatta chiisai neko. So they first heard the cat, and then found it.)

Please sit down quietly.
Shizuka ni suwatte kudasai.
静かに座って下さい。

Hope this helps :)

Eric

Looks good to me. I’ve just been too busy to look up the appropriate grammar in a proper book to talk like an authority but, I’m pretty sure you’re on the money here.