There’s an example for this grammar point where I don’t think we’ve covered all the parts of the sentence:
日本語を勉強し 始めて すぐ、日本語の難しさが分かった。
I’m not clear why the answer is し始めて and not し始めた。Is it something to do with すぐ?
はじめて is て form of はじめる。
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/416
て form has many uses, but generally, it shows that there is some kind of connection between verb in て form and what comes after it. So it can be used to write more complex sentences. Basically “and/after etc”.
日本語を勉強し始めて すぐ、日本語の難しさが分かった。
Soon after I started studying Japanese, I realized the difficulty of the language. [casual - begin]
So literal translation would be:
I started learning Japanese and shortly I realized the difficulty of the language.
If you used た then you would have two sentences.
日本語を勉強しはじめた。日本語の難しさが分かった。
I started learning Japanese. I realized the difficulty of it(Japanese).
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