Difference between い and な form of the same adjective

Japanese
#1

Hi,
I am checking the last vocabs I didn’t learn in the N5 deck, and I encountered these words:

  • 大きな
  • 小さな

What is the difference with :

  • 大きい
  • 小さい

It seems that the only difference is the way they can be used due to い-adj and な-adj usage.
Probably a trivial question here, but is there another difference between these two forms ? If these two forms exists, there must be a reason I guess.
When I can use both, is there one form I should use more than the other ?

Thanks

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#2

The common explanation is that 大きな and 小さな both tend to be used more often for describing abstract things or give a subjective impression. Having said that I can say from experience that this isn’t 100% applicable but it is generally true.

On the side of grammar, 大きな・小さな are not actually な-adjectves (形容動詞) but are in fact something called pre-noun adjectvals (連体詞). I won’t go into the differences as I don’t want to waffle but if you’re interested and google doesn’t help then just ask and I can go into more detail.

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#3

Thanks for your answer,
I also found some discussions about this and I feel maybe this is the kind of thing even native don’t always agree on. That’s why I asked to be sure I wasn’t missing something.
For others that could be interested by this matter, here is a link I found interesting :

Reddit - I get that one is a “pre-noun adjectival,” but what does that mean in practice again?

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