I saw many questions regarding "na" at the end of a sentence; however, what
about at the end of a word? Consider these two sentences:

>   1. Korewa ōki **na** kurumadesu. (これはおおき **な** くるまです) _This is a big car_.
>
>   2. Ōkii kurumadesu. (おおきいくるまです) _(This) is a big car._
>
>

What does 'na' (bolded) have to do in this sentence?

Consider this sentence too:

> Korewa akai kurumadesu. (これはあかいくるまです) _This is a red car_.

How come 'na' is used in the first sentence but not in this one. Does 'na'
mean 'a' as an article?
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word-choice
What does 'na' at the end of a word mean?
In the 連体形{れんたいけい} (attributive form) of a na-adjective, な comes at the end of
it, like 静{しず}かな, きれいな.

In the 連体形 (attributive form) of an i-adjective, い comes at the end of it,
like 大{おお}きい, 暑{あつ}い. That is the same as the dictionary form.

大きな is the 連体形 (attributive form) of an old na-adjective おおきなり, and only the
attributive form is used in the present day. 小{ちい}さな, おかしな are also the same
thing. They are analyzed as pre-noun adjectivals but are a bit different from
other pre-noun adjectivals.

So both 大きい車{くるま} and 大きな車 are used, and they have almost the same meaning.
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To expand on Yuuichi's answer, note that both [大きい]{ōkii} and [小さい]{chīsai}
are the "basic" _-i_ adjectives for _large_ and _small_. These are probably
the most common forms, and these conjugate fully. See the corresponding
inflection tables in the Wiktionary entries at
[大きい](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E3%81%8D%E3%81%84#Inflection)
and
[小さい](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E3%81%95%E3%81%84#Inflection).

Words that are used extremely frequently in any language sometimes wind up
with funny forms. Consider "go" in English ‑‑ the past tense is "went", which
was originally the past tense for a completely different verb, "wend".

For 大きい and 小さい, these both overlap in modern usage with the older forms
[大きな]{ōkina} and [小さな]{chīsana}. These look kinda like _-na_ adjectives,
**but** they can only be used as attributives ‑‑ that means, they **must** be
followed by a noun, they cannot be used at the end of a sentence. Also, they
cannot be used as adverbs (changing the [な]{na} on the end for [に]{ni}).

I think these two, [大きい]{ōkii} and [小さい]{chīsai}, are the only two words that
follow this exact pattern, with full regular _-i_ adjective forms and a single
defective (i.e. missing portions) _-na_ adjective form. As a learner, you
should also be aware that there are a few other irregular words in Japanese,
such as [同じ]{onaji}.

Happy studying!

### Update

Chocolate kindly reminded me of the existence of [おかしな]{okashina}, a similar
attributive-only form for regular _-i_ adjective [おかしい]{okashii}. I can't find
evidence of any others, but languages are big and time is scarce. :) If anyone
knows of more, chime in and let's add them here.
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