When going over a summary of Japanese grammar I came across the following sentence:
私は学生で友だちはいしゃです。
How should this be translated? It supposedly covers the construct of noun+で. Is it the te-form?
Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community”で” Here is the te-form of the coupla "だ/です" and means simply "is", but it has the connotation of continuing on with the sentence, instead of ending it like "だ" would.
So "AはBで。。。" would mean "A is B and..."
Both nouns(名詞) and na-adjectives(形容動詞) have the same continuative-form(連用形) which is the form you use in a sentence to keep it going, and consist in appending で to them at the end.
- [彼女]{かのじょ} は [静]{しず}かで 18[歳]{さい}で [美人]{びじん}です 。
- She's quiet, 18 years old and a beauty.
In the example above we chained a na-adjectve followed by a noun(years) – also chained – and finished with another adjective.