Now that we can connect two nouns together in various ways using particles, we want to describe our nouns with adjectives. An adjective can directly modify a noun that immediately follows it. It can also be connected in the same way we did with nouns using particles. All adjectives fall under two categories: na-adjectives and i-adjectives.
The na-adjective is very simple to learn because it acts essentially like a noun. All the conjugation rules for both nouns and na-adjectives are the same. One main difference is that a na-adjective can directly modify a noun following it by sticking 「な」 between the adjective and noun. (Hence the name, na-adjective.)
You can also use adjectives with particles just like we did in the last lesson with nouns.
As shown by the following examples, the conjugation rules for na-adjectives are the same as nouns.
If it bothers you that "like" is an adjective and not a verb in Japanese, you can think of 「好き」 as meaning "desirable". Also, you can see a good example of the topic and identifier particle working in harmony. The sentence is about the topic "Bob" and "fish" identifies specifically what Bob likes.
You can also use the last three conjugations to directly modify the noun. (Remember to attach 「な」 for positive non-past tense.)
Here, the entire clause 「魚が好き」、「魚が好きじゃない」、etc. is modifying "person" to talk about people that like or dislike fish. You can see why this type of sentence is useful because 「人は魚が好きだ」 would mean "People like fish", which isn't always the case.
We can even treat the whole descriptive noun clause as we would a single noun. For instance, we can make the whole clause a topic like the following example.
All i-adjectives always end in the Hiragana character: 「い」. However, you may have noticed that some na-adjectives also end in 「い」 such as 「きれい（な）」. So how can you tell the difference? There are actually very few na-adjectives that end with 「い」 that is usually not written in Kanji. Two of the most common include: 「きれい」 and 「嫌い」. Almost all other na-adjectives that end in 「い」 are usually written in Kanji and so you can easily tell that it's not an i-adjective. For instance, 「きれい」 written in Kanji looks like 「綺麗」 or 「奇麗」. Since the 「い」 part of 「麗」 is part of a Kanji character, you know that it can't be an i-adjective. That's because the whole point of the 「い」 in i-adjectives is to allow conjugation without changing the Kanji. In fact, 「嫌い」 is one of the rare na-adjectives that in 「い」 without a Kanji. This has to do with the fact that 「嫌い」 is actually derived from the verb 「嫌う」.
Unlike na-adjectives, you do not need to add 「な」 to directly modify a noun with an i-adjective.
Remember how the negative state-of-being for nouns also ended in 「い」 （じゃない）? Well, just like the negative state-of-being for nouns, you can never attach the declarative 「だ」 to i-adjectives.
| Do NOT attach 「だ」 to i-adjectives. |
Now that we got that matter cleared up, below are the rules for conjugating i-adjectives. Notice that the rule for conjugating to negative past tense is the same as the rule for the past tense.
| Positive | Negative | |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Past | 高い | 高くない |
| Past | 高かった | 高くなかった |
Note that you can make the same type of descriptive noun clause as we have done with na-adjectives. The only difference is that we don't need 「な」 to directly modify the noun.
In this example, the descriptive clause 「値段が高い」 is directly modifying 「レストラン」.
There is one i-adjective meaning "good" that acts slightly differently from all other i-adjectives. This is a classic case of how learning Japanese is harder for beginners because the most common and useful words also have the most exceptions. The word for "good" was originally 「よい（良い）」. However, with time, it soon became 「いい」. When it is written in Kanji, it is usually read as 「よい」 so 「いい」 is almost always Hiragana. That's all fine and good. Unfortunately, all the conjugations are still derived from 「よい」 and not 「いい」. This is shown in the next table.
Another adjective that acts like this is 「かっこいい」 because it is an abbreviated version of two words merged together: 「格好」 and 「いい」. Since it uses the same 「いい」, you need to use the same conjugations.
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Take care to make all the conjugations from 「よい」 not 「いい」.
In the following exercises, we will practice the conjugations for adjectives. But first, you might want to learn or review the following useful adjectives that will be used in the exercises.
We are now going to practice the adjectives conjugations in order. Take each adjective and conjugate it to the following forms: the declarative (when applicable), negative, past, and negative past. In order to emphasize the fact that you can't use the declarative 「だ」 with i-adjectives, you should just write "n/a" (or just leave it blank) when a conjugation does not apply.
| plain | declarative | negative | past | negative-past |
| 面白い | n/a | 面白くない | 面白かった | 面白くなかった |
| 有名 | 有名だ | 有名じゃない | 有名だった | 有名じゃなかった |
| 嫌い | 嫌いだ | 嫌いじゃない | 嫌いだった | 嫌いじゃなかった |
| 好き | 好きだ | 好きじゃない | 好きだった | 好きじゃなかった |
| 大きい | n/a | 大きくない | 大きかった | 大きくなかった |
| きれい | きれいだ | きれいじゃない | きれいだった | きれいじゃなかった |
| 小さい | n/a | 小さくない | 小さかった | 小さくなかった |
| いい | n/a | よくない | よかった | よくなかった |
| 静か | 静かだ | 静かじゃない | 静かだった | 静かじゃなかった |
| 高い | n/a | 高くない | 高かった | 高くなかった |
| かっこいい | n/a | かっこよくない | かっこよかった | かっこよくなかった |
| 楽しい | n/a | 楽しくない | 楽しかった | 楽しくなかった |
| 大切 | 大切だ | 大切じゃない | 大切だった | 大切じゃなかった |
Now that we've practiced the basic conjugations for adjectives, we are going to practice using them in actual sentences using the particles covered in the last section.
Sample:
Ｑ） 学生？
Ａ） ううん、学生じゃない。
| 1. |
|
ジム） アリス、今 忙しい？ アリス） ううん、 。 |
| 2. |
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アリス） 何 楽しい？ ボブ） ゲーム 楽しい。 |
| 3. |
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アリス） 人は誰？ ボブ） ジム 大切だ。 |
| 4. |
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アリス） 料理は、好き？ ボブ） ううん、辛くない料理 好きだ。 |
| 5. |
|
アリス） ジム 、かっこいい人？ ボブ） ううん、 。 |
| 6. |
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アリス） ボブは、 人？ ボブ） ううん、有名じゃない。 |
| 7. |
|
アリス） 昨日のテストは、よかった？ ボブ） ううん、 。 |