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I was randomly reading a grammar book (despite I'm still being in N5) and found the follow sentence:

住み心地のいい小さな家

The sentence was alone, without context, and it was translated to something like "a small good to live house" (the book is not in english, so I'm translating it by myself).

This took my attention because I can't see any verbs, but there is that "to live". I already tried to understand the phrase by myself, but since I found 住み心地 is a noun, not a verb, I would appreciate a explanation from someone with more knowledge, specially about what plays the role of a verb here.

chocolate
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1 Answers1

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I would parse the phrase like this:

〔[住]{す}み[心地]{ごこち}のいい〕（小さな）家

住み心地のいい and 小さな both modify the noun 家.

住み心地 is a noun, literally "living feeling" → "comfort in living".
住み心地のいい means "comfortable to live in". It's a relative clause that modifies 家.

住み心地のいい家 can be rephrased as 住み心地がいい家, and its non-relative version would be:

家は住み心地がいい
lit. as for house, living feeling is good
→ house is comfortable to live in

So

〔住み心地のいい〕（小さな）家
lit. a （small） house 〔where living feeling is good〕
→ a （small） house 〔that's comfortable to live in〕

Related (regarding the が/の conversion in a relative clause):

chocolate
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