86057
I was translating some lyrics and I find this expression

> **小さな頃** には宝の地図が

And I have a problem with the one in bold, Reading another questions I find
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/28545/what-is-the-
difference-between-%e9%a0%83-and-%e3%81%a8%e3%81%8d/28559#28559), and the
person how answered uses the example 若い時 / 若い頃 as "In youth", I can understood
it as _" Young time"_ (As if the time itself was young) and too as _" the
moment of youth" = In youth_, (Probably the sense changed a little bit because
of the translation from my mother language to english)

So I have two options to understood this type of constructions:

  1. It's posible to calify the expresion 時 or 頃 with adjectives (for example, as I said "the time itself was young")
  2. the adjective refers to the speaker and 時 / 頃 is just to refer to that point of time when that adjective was certain.

(Personally I think that both of them exist, But I'm not sure, Please correct
me if I'm wrong.) But if I understood the example of the link as "in youth"
using the second option I have a new trouble, Why is used "小さな" instead of
小さい" if it refers to "the time when _**I**_ was small/child/young" so the
adjective califies me (a concrete thing) why is not used "小さい"?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-10T12:54:28.983
86054
2021-04-10T17:01:05.003
2021-04-10T14:06:07.283
42212
42212
question
grammar meaning
Meaning of "小さな頃"
In "小さな頃" and "若い頃", the subject is omitted. The subject can be for example
"私"(speaker) or "彼/彼女"(a person who is talked about). So, "小さな頃" means
"私が(/彼が/彼女が）小さな頃". In many cases if you see adj+"時"or"頃", there is a hidden
subject. In most of cases, the subject is the same as the subject of it's main
clause.

And "小さな頃" and "小さい頃" mean same thing. Maybe it is true that "adj+な" is used
often with abstract things, but we can use "adj+な" of course with concrete
things.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-10T16:52:55.957
86057
2021-04-10T17:01:05.003
2021-04-10T17:01:05.003
43535
43535
86054
answer