Short form anguish

[Spiderwick]

Hi
Can anyone help me!! I'm studying Japanese on my own and have been doing so for awhile now. Im using the genki textbook and I'm a bit stuck.

One of the exercises gives me a sentence and then asks my to transform them using
と　いっていました (they said ...)

I've done alright so far, but I'm really thick with these two sentences.
Problem 1
きょうと　に　すんで　います
I can see that すんで is the te form, but how could I ever work out if it should be
すむ,　　すぶ,　すぬ ? All of which transform to すんで in the te form. Am I really missing something here? I'm used to being able to work something out but this seems to suggest I use a dictionary first - I need to figure out the type of verb so I can use the correct short form.

Problem 2:
おかあさん　は　りょうり　が　じょうず　です

Is this right?
おかあさん　は　りょうりする　が　じょうずだ　と　いっていました
I think I've used the short form twice but I can't tell on the audio if any of this is correct.

Sorry if I'm really stupid. Any help would be much appreciated

Anne

[QuackingShoe]

I'd have assumed that they'd give the word in it's dictionary form somewhere earlier in the book, but having not used genki, I'm unaware. As you say, though, you can't tell what it is by backward-conjugating. You have to know in advance or look it up. In this case it's すむ. HOWEVER, it doesn't actually matter with what you're doing, since you should be saying きょうと　に　すんで　いる　と　いって　いました, as the plain of すんでいます is すんでいる, not すむ. You don't need to backward conjugate at all.

You don't need the する after りょうり here, not sure why you put it there, and する　が is (in this context) ungrammatical because が marks a noun and する is a verb. Otherwise it's fine.

Feel free to ask further if you're confused... congratulations on deciding to embark on self-study.

[Spiderwick]

Ah! Everything is so much clearer! I'd mis-read the first one and your explanation really helps with both of them. Can't say how grateful I am. Now I'm off to figure out the past tense of the short form. Onwards and upwards
Thanks again,
Anne