I recently learnt how to chain nouns adjectives and verbs together to create compound sentences.

For nouns and na-adjectives you attach で for example 静か becomes 静かで and 一般的 becomes 一般的で

For i-adjectives and negative nouns/adjectives you replace the い with くて for example 狭い becomes 狭くて, 彼女じゃない becomes 彼女じゃなくて and いい becomes よくて.

Using what I learned I practiced with some examples:

Examples:

私の部屋は、きれいで、静かで、とても好き。- My room is clean, quiet and I like it a lot.

彼女は、学生じゃなくて、先生だ。- She is not a student, she is a teacher.

田中さんは、お金持ちで、かっこよくて、魅力的ですね。- Tanaka-San is rich, handsome and charming, isn't he?

For verbs they must be conjugated into the te-form also known as the continuative form, to do this you conjugate the verb to its past tense and replace た with て or だ with で. For negative verbs the い is replaced with くて.

These rules work for polite endings too for example 学生です becomes 学生でした and then the te-form is 大学でして. For ます form it does the same for example 買います becomes 買いました and then into the te-form 買いまして.

Examples:

食堂に行って、昼ご飯を食べて、昼寝をする。- I will go to cafeteria, eat lunch and take a nap.

食堂にいって、昼ご飯を食べて、昼寝をした。- I went to cafeteria, ate lunch and took a nap.

時間がありまして、映画を見ました。- There was time and I watched a movie.

The next thing I learnt was how to express reason or causation using から and ので.

So firstly I learn about から and that the sentence is ordered [reason] から [result] and that when the reason is a non-conjugated noun or na-adjective then だ must be added. Without the だ it will instead mean 'from'.

Examples

時間がなかったからパーティーに行きませんでした。- There was no time so didn't go to party.

友達からプレゼントが来た。- Present came from friend.

友達だからプレゼントが来た。- Present came because friend (sounds a bit odd).

I then learnt that if it's clear from context then either the reason or result can be omitted.

Examples

田中さん）どうしてパーティーに行きませんでしたか。- Why didn't you go to the party?

山田さん）時間がなかったからです。- Because there was no time.

ので can be used instead of から with the difference being that から explicitly states that the sentence preceding is the reason for something while ので is simply two sentences put together with the first having an explanatory tone. As a result ので sounds softer and slightly more polite and so is usually favoured over から when explaining a reason for doing something discourteous. Also for non-conjugated nouns and na-adjectives な needs to be added.

Examples

ちょっと忙しいので、そろそろ失礼します。- Because I'm a little busy, I'll be making my leave soon.

私は学生なので、お金がないです。- Because I'm a student, I have no money.

ここは静かなので、とても穏やかです。- It is very calm here because it is quiet.

There is still more to learn about compound sentences such as expressing contradiction and expressing multiple reasons.