I'm really confused here. If you are describing a noun with an -i adjective, do you keep the -i ending or change it to -na?
For example, if I wanted to say, "a cute kitten," would it be correct to say "可愛い子猫" or "可愛な子猫," or both, since 可愛い is an -i adjective?
Please help me understand... :D
Wow....a lot of explanations! Annie, Kit and Starry! you are very keen learners! Impressive!
Annie
Talking about otommena megitsune(乙女なメギツネ)、is it a song from Babymetal? This expression, ～な has been used among young people lately. It's not correct Japanese. The writer made it. probably it's popular song and the lyrics sound slangs and casual.
It means like Kit said that is the lady fox. And probably it means she looks a lady but attractive sexy. Female fox メギツネ is used for describing a hot woman. On the other hand, 乙女otome means a virgin in old Japanese expression.
the song says:
あ〜 そうよ いつでも 女は女優よ
キツネじゃない キツネじゃない乙女な メギツネ
It's very poetic. Interesting!
http://jisho.org/search/%E5%B0%8F%E3%81%95%E3%81%84
This appears to be different from actual na-adjectives because they don't get listed in the dictionary with the な. They just need them if you're gonna attach them to nouns.
Here's the entry for 大切 (たいせつ):
http://jisho.org/word/%E5%A4%A7%E5%88%87
It's listed as na-adjective and noun. I think na-adjectives are basically just nouns that need な instead of の when attaching them to nouns.
Regular nouns take の when joining up with another noun (or nothing, if the word is a compound word.)
Anyway, as for how 小さな differs from 小さい, I found it in my textbook and it says the one in the な conjugation makes it feel like you find the thing you're describing endearing and that it makes you seem cute.
Na-adjectives and i-adjectives are two completely different types and the way they behave is really different.
Na-adjectives are simple. If you want to join them to a noun, you slap a な in between them and the noun and you're golden. Let's use 大切 (たいせつ, important) as an example. If I want to say "important day" I do 大切な日 (たいせつ な ひ) The な joins 大切 with 日.
More Examples:
便利なもの（べんり な もの, convenient thing)
大切な人 (たいせつ な ひと, important person)
好きな科目 (すき な かもく, favorite subject)
i-adjectives are more complicated because they can swap out their い ending for either く or くて and they behave differently depending on which ending it is. To keep this simple, I'll just talk about when they're in their い form.
When they're like this, they attach directly to nouns like in your かわいい子猫 example.
More Examples:
長い時間 （ながい じかん, long time)
黒い犬 （くろい いぬ, black dog)
いい人 (いい ひと, good person)
