Sentence structures

[slavor]

Does anyone have any tips to make it easier learning/making various complex sentence structures using ta and te endings? The reason I ask is because I always thought the verb was at the end of the sentence and then studying ta form looks like they can modify nouns like this from the timewerx site:

# Joy ga yaita keeki wa oishikatta. (The cake Joy made was delicious.)
# Boku ga katta PC wa, juu hachi man en deshita. (The PC I bought was one hundred eighty thousand yen.)
# Bob ga benkyou shita koto wa totemo yakudatta. (The things Bob studied were very helpful.)

I am so confused can someone explain this to me.

[Joey]

that ta-ending form of verb is the plain past form of the verb.
i.e. taberu = to eat
tabeta = ate

In those sentences, the plain past tense form of the verb is used to modify a noun.
so for the first example: joy ga yaita keeki wa oishikatta. The cake that Joy made was delicious.
so "keeki wa oishikatta" = the cake was delicious.
To say what kind of cake it was (in this case, who made the cake)
we add "joy ga yaita" in front of keeki to modify cake.

so some other examples:
mita eiga= the movie i saw
tabeta sushi = the sushi i ate

Sorry i'm not so good at explaining.

[jkeyz15]

"joy no yaita keeki" sounds a little more natural to me I think. But I think either is fine.


To the OP:
The main verb in the sentence goes at the end. However you can have clauses (with verbs at the end of the clause) to modify a noun.

[clause -verb] + [noun] + [particle] +[rest of sentence] + [final main verb]

[slavor]

I just feel there should be a desu at the end or something, really confusing

[Joey]

Desu is the polite form of the copula (like is in english) so you would only use desu when you are trying to say a desu statement (i.e. A wa B desu)

so in your first example sentence:
joy ga yaita keeki wa oishikatta
you could add a desu at the end to make it polite:
joy ga yaita keeki wa oishikatta desu
In that sentence "Joy ga yaita keeki" =A and "oishikatta"=B in terms of the 'A wa B desu' sentence structure.

In your second example, desu is already there! just in past tense form: deshita.
Boku ga katta PC wa, juu hachi man en deshita.
In that sentence "Boku ga katta PC"=A and "juu hachi man en"=B

Desu is also in your 3rd example! This time in the plain past tense form: datta
Bob ga benkyou shita koto wa totemo yakudatta
"Bob ga benkyou shita koto"=A "totemo yaku"=B

Heres a list of the past and non-past forms of desu in plain and polite in case you didn't know.
non-past polite: desu です
non past plain: da　だ
past polite: deshita　でした
past plain: datta　だった

[slavor]

Thanks very much guys. Joey that last post really, really helped me I am grateful.