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> (1) 明日、家へ帰って、母が作ったおいしい料理を食べます。

why is it `作った` when it’s a future event? If I wanted to create a clause
meaning 'delicious food my mother makes', it would be `母が作るおいしい料理`. Does
changing `作った` in (1) to `作る` make any sense? Or is it grammatically wrong?

EDIT: I read my own draft question wrongly and transferred it wrongly to
stackexchange. I intended to ask this:

And in

> (2) 私の家は郊外にあります。町までちょっと遠いですが、電車が走っていますから、便利です。

Why is it `走っています` and not `走っていました`? (I think I just solved this on my own.
走っていた + から implies 走っていた causes 便利, which clearly isn't the case)
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2011-07-29T17:55:37.200
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2011-07-30T01:51:28.917
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question
grammar meaning tense
How do I decide when to use plain or past verb form?
Isn't that, "Tomorrow, I return home and eat the delicious food my mother
made." ? In English, it's past-tense, too. If she was making the food still,
you could use 作る instead.

Also, if you're thinking of it as the food she has historically made, I could
see it making sense in both languages, too, but English would definitely lean
towards present tense.
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2011-07-29T18:19:27.897
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The first sentence here forms an excellent question, because it highlights the
issue of tense in subordinate clauses, which can be counter-intuitive coming
from an English background.

> 明日、家へ帰って、母が作ったおいしい料理を食べます。

The English mind looks at this and thinks about the verb 作る _relative to the
time when this statement is made_. Since we're talking about a future event,
it would seem to make sense that the verbs (even in subordinate clauses)
should match up and be in future tense. But the Japanese mind thinks about 作る
_relative to the time when the main action takes place_. Since the main action
is 食べる, at the point when 食べる takes place, the food will have already been
made, so 作った, not 作る, is correct.

For another example, consider the following:

> 日本に行くときにデジカメを買います。
>
> 日本に行ったときにデジカメを買います。

These are both valid sentences, but they mean different things! The first,
because 行く is non-past, means you will buy a camera _before_ going to Japan
(because at the time とき, the action 行く has not happened yet). But the second,
because 行った is past, means you will buy a camera _after_ having arrived in
Japan (because at the time とき, the action 行く has happened).
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2011-07-29T18:37:36.663
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