Te forms are super important in Japanese and I’ve done several videos and blog posts on them. At least a basic understanding of the te form is needed to get any meaningful progress in understanding let alone speaking Japanese well.
However much of the focus always seems to be on the verb te forms. Of course this is for a good reason, many of the particularly N4+ style grammar points are going to require you to be adept at handing the te form.
However there are other te forms apart from those used with verbs. Adjectives and nouns both have versions of the te form which are also extremely useful.
I-Adjective Te Forms
To make the te forms of i adjectives is pretty straight forward. For the every inflection/tense, you replace the い with くて
おいしい ー＞ おいしくて
おいしくない ー＞ おいしくなくて
There are no te forms for past and past negative, おいしかった or おいしくなかった
Nouns and Na Adjectives
As to be expected in Japanese grammar, both nouns and Na adjectives both take で to make the te form for the present tense
がくせい ー＞ がくせいで
しずか ー＞ しずかで
For the negatives, you follow the above i adjective rule:
がくせいじゃない ー＞ がくせいじゃなくて
しずかじゃない ー＞ しずかじゃなくて
Use case for this grammar: joining adjectives and nouns together in ‘chains’
You can then use these te forms to join adjectives together with nouns to describe things in more detail,
このたべものはおいしくて、やすい
そのひとはがくせいでしずか
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