Learn Hardcore Japanese: kinou no bangohan ha, tuma ga ryourikyousitu de naratta pasuta dake desita ga, totemo oisikatta desu. - Yesterday’s dinner was only the pasta my wife learned at the cooking class, but it was very delicious.

In English, we don’t have a direct particle like this, but you can feel it as “As for…” or “Regarding…”. The thing after は is not necessarily the doer of the action (subject); it’s the topic.

Why is it 妻が and not 妻は?

Here, 妻が marks 妻 (my wife) as the subject inside a clause that describes パスタ.

The structure is:

[妻が料理教室で習った]パスタ
- 妻が = wife (subject)
- 料理教室で習った = learned at a cooking class
- Together: "the pasta (that) my wife learned at a cooking class"

Inside a relative clause (a clause that modifies a noun), が is very commonly used for the subject.
Using 妻は here is usually unnatural because は tends to mark the main topic of the whole sentence, not the subject of a small descriptive clause.

So:

Whole clause: 妻が料理教室で習った modifies パスタ
In that small clause, 妻 is the doer, so we use が.

How does 妻が料理教室で習ったパスタ work grammatically? It feels backwards compared to English.

This is a relative clause, where a whole phrase comes before the noun it describes.

Structure:

妻が = (my) wife (subject)
料理教室で = at a cooking class
習った = learned
パスタ = pasta

Put together:

妻が料理教室で習ったパスタ
= the pasta (that) my wife learned (how to make) at a cooking class

In Japanese:

The describing clause comes before the noun.
There is no relative pronoun like that / which / who.

More examples:

昨日買った本 = the book (that) I bought yesterday
母が作ったケーキ = the cake (that) my mother made

So here, everything up to 習った is describing パスタ.

What does で mean in 料理教室で習った?

で here marks the place where an action happens.

料理教室 = cooking class / cooking school
料理教室で習った = learned (it) at a cooking class

So で in this sentence is:

not "with"
not "by"
but "at / in" as in “at a certain place, this action was done”.

Other examples of で as "place where action happens":

図書館で勉強する = study at the library
会社で働く = work at a company
公園で遊ぶ = play in the park

What exactly does だけでした mean after パスタ?

だけ means “only / just”, and でした is the past polite form of です.

パスタだけでした
= It was only pasta.
(We only had pasta, nothing else.)

Because the topic is 昨日の晩ご飯, the full idea is:

昨日の晩ご飯は、パスタだけでした。
= As for yesterday’s dinner, it was only pasta.

Some related patterns:

だけ = only
Aだけ食べた = I ate only A
水だけ飲んだ = I drank only water

What is left out after パスタだけでした? It feels like something is missing.

Grammatically, what’s omitted is something like ～でした = “was (something like that)” referring back to 晩ご飯.

You can think of it as:

昨日の晩ご飯は、（晩ご飯は）妻が料理教室で習ったパスタだけでした。

But repeating 晩ご飯は would sound redundant and unnatural, so Japanese just drops it. The listener understands that だけでした is about 晩ご飯.

So the structure is:

Topic: 昨日の晩ご飯は
Predicate: 妻が料理教室で習ったパスタだけでした

No extra word like “meal” or “food” is needed; it’s all implied.

What is the function of が between でした and とても: …だけでしたが、とてもおいしかったです。?

This が is not the subject marker; it’s a conjunction meaning “but / although”.

So:

パスタだけでしたが、… = It was only pasta, but …

Full connection:

パスタだけでしたが、とてもおいしかったです。
= It was only pasta, but it was very delicious.

Common pattern:

Aが、B。
= A, but B.

Examples:

高かったですが、とても便利です。
= It was expensive, but it’s very convenient.
疲れましたが、楽しかったです。
= I got tired, but it was fun.

Why is it おいしかったです and not おいしかったでした?

For adjectives, the polite past form is:

Adjective (past) + です

For おいしい:

Plain present: おいしい
Plain past: おいしかった
Polite present: おいしいです
Polite past: おいしかったです ✅ correct

おいしかったでした is incorrect. You don’t add でした after the adjective’s past form. You just use the past form of the adjective + です.

More examples:

寒いです。 = It is cold.
寒かったです。 = It was cold.
忙しかったです。 = I was busy.

Both parts are in the past. Why do we see でした and おいしかったです instead of the same exact form?

They are the same tense (past), but they are different word types:

パスタだけでした
- パスタだけ = noun phrase
- Past polite copula: でした
  → noun + でした for past polite
とてもおいしかったです
- おいしい = i-adjective
- Past plain: おいしかった
- Polite: add です
  → adjective (past) + です for past polite

So:

Noun (or noun phrase) + でした
- 学生でした = I was a student.
- 雨だけでした = It was only rain.
I-adjective (past) + です
- 高かったです = It was expensive.
- おいしかったです = It was delicious.

Both are past polite, just using the correct pattern for each type of word.

Could you rephrase this sentence in a simpler way but keep the same meaning?

A natural, slightly simpler version (less detail about where she learned it) could be:

昨日の晩ご飯は、妻が習ったパスタだけでしたが、とてもおいしかったです。
= You drop 料理教室で, but the overall structure is the same.

Or, to split it into two sentences:

昨日の晩ご飯はパスタだけでした。妻が料理教室で習ったパスタですが、とてもおいしかったです。

The original sentence is already natural; these just make the structure more obviously “two parts”.

Is とても the most common way to say “very”? Are there other options here?

とても is a very common, neutral, polite “very”. It fits this sentence well.

Other common intensifiers:

すごくおいしかったです。
= It was really / incredibly delicious. (casual–neutral)
本当においしかったです。
= It was really / truly delicious. (slightly stronger, sincere)
めっちゃおいしかったです。
= It was super delicious. (very casual / dialectal feel, especially Kansai)

So you could also say:

…パスタだけでしたが、すごくおいしかったです。
…パスタだけでしたが、本当においしかったです。

とても is the safest neutral choice in standard polite Japanese.