Adjectives
Properties of Adjectives
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. We will see how they are different and how to use them in sentences.
The na-adjective
The na-adjective is very simple to learn because it acts essentially like a noun. In fact, they are so similar; you can assume that they behave the same way unless I specifically point out differences. 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.)
（１） 静かな人。- Quiet person.
In addition to this direct noun modification which requires a 「な」, you can also say that a noun is an adjective by using the topic or identifier particle in a [Noun] [Particle] [Adj] sentence structure (for instance 「人は静か」）. This is essentially the same thing as the state-of-being with nouns that we've already covered in the previous two sections. However, since it doesn't make sense for an adjective to be a noun, you cannot have a [Adj] [Particle] [Noun] sentence structure （for instance 「静かが人」）. This is pretty obvious because, for instance, while a person can be quiet, it makes no sense for quiet to be a person.
（１） 友達は親切。- Friend is kind.
（２） 友達は親切な人。- Friend is kind person.
Remember how na-adjectives act almost exactly the same as nouns? Well, you can see this by the following examples.
（１） ボブは魚が好きだ。- Bob likes fish.
（２） ボブは魚が好きじゃない。- Bob does not like fish.
（３） ボブは魚が好きだった。- Bob liked fish.
（４） ボブは魚が好きじゃなかった。- Bob did not like fish.
Do the conjugations look familiar? They should, if you paid attention to the section about state-of-being conjugations for 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.)
（１） 魚が好きなタイプ。- Type that likes fish.
（２） 魚が好きじゃないタイプ。- Type that does not like fish.
（３） 魚が好きだったタイプ。- Type that liked fish.
（４） 魚が好きじゃなかったタイプ。- Type that did not like fish.
Here, the entire clause 「魚が好き」、「魚が好きじゃない」、etc. is modifying "type" to talk about types (of people) that like or dislike fish. You can see why this type of sentence is useful because 「タイプは魚が好きだ。」 would mean "The type likes fish", which doesn't make much sense.
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.
（１） 魚が好きじゃないタイプは、肉が好きだ。
- Types (of people) who do not like fish like meat.
The i-adjective
The i-adjective is called that because it always ends in the hiragana character 「い」. This is the okurigana and it is the part that will change as you conjugate the adjective. But you may know some na-adjectives that also end in 「い」 such as 「きれい（な）」. So how can you tell the difference? The bad news is there really is no way to tell for sure. However, the really good news is that I can only think of two examples of na-adjectives that end with 「い」 that is usually written in hiragana: 「きれい」 and 「嫌い」. All other na-adjectives I can think of that end in 「い」 are usually written in kanji and so you can easily tell that it's not an i-adjective. For instance, in the case of 「きれい」, which is 「綺麗」 or 「奇麗」 in kanji, since the 「い」 part of 「麗」 is encased in kanji, 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 having it affect the kanji. In fact, 「嫌い」 is the only na-adjective I can think of that ends in hiragana 「い」 without a kanji. This has to do with the fact that 「嫌い」 is actually derived from the verb 「嫌う」
Remember how the negative state-of-being for nouns also ended in 「い」 （じゃない）? Well, you can treat i-adjectives in the same fashion as the negative state-of-being for nouns. And just like the negative state-of-being for nouns, you cannot attach the declarative 「だ」 to i-adjectives like you can with nouns or na-adjectives.
| Do NOT attach 「だ」 to i-adjectives. |
Now that we got that matter cleared up, we can learn the conjugation rules for i-adjectives. There are two new rules for i-adjective conjugations. To negate or set to past tense, we first drop the 「い」, then add 「くない」 for negation or 「かった」 for past tense. Since 「くない」 ends in an 「い」, you can also treat the negative just like another i-adjective. Therefore, the rule for conjugating to negative past tense is the same as the rule for the positive past tense.
- Negative: First remove the trailing 「い」 from the i-adjective and then attach 「くない」
- 例） 高
い→ 高くない - Past-tense: First remove the trailing 「い」 from the i-adjective or negative i-adjective and then attach 「かった」
- 例） 高
い→ 高かった - 例） 高くな
い→ 高くなかった
| Positive | Negative | |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Past | 高い | 高くない |
| Past | 高かった | 高くなかった |
You can directly modify nouns by just attaching the noun to the adjective.
（１） 高いビル。- Tall building.
（２） 高くないビル。- Not tall building.
（３） 高かったビル。- Building that was tall.
（４） 高くなかったビル。- Building that was not tall.
You can also string multiple adjectives successively in any order in any form.
（１） 静かな高いビル。- A quiet, tall building.
（２） 高くない静かなビル。- A not tall, quiet building.
Note that you can make the same type of descriptive noun clause as we have done with na-adjectives. The only difference, of course, is that we don't need 「な」 to directly modify the noun. In the following example, the descriptive clause 「値段が高い」 is directly modifying 「レストラン」.
（１） 値段が高いレストランはあまり好きじゃない。
- Don't like high price restaurants very much.
An annoying exception
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.
|
|
Take care to make all the conjugations from 「よい」 not 「いい」.
Examples
（１） 値段があんまりよくない。
- Price isn't very good.
（２） 彼はかっこよかった！
- He looked really cool!
I don't understand why suki
I don't understand why suki is followed by "da" (だ) in the first example:
（１） ボブは魚が好きだ。- Bob likes fish.
But then in this example it is followed by "na" (な):
（１） 魚が好きなタイプ。- Type that likes fish.
I thought "da" is the state of being declarative, so I must be understanding something incorrectly. The second example makes sense to me because it's followed by "na" and it is a "na" adjective in its non-negative and non-past tense state.
Can someone explain this so I understand better?
Thank you!
In the first example, it's
In the first example, it's roughly like this: [Bob] [About fish] [like].
In the second: ([About fish] [like]) な [Type]. This takes the first part that I put in brackets and takes it to describe [Type].
In the first example, since [like] is at the end of the sentence, it's not describing the next word in the sentence. な is used to say "what's before me describes what's after me".
だ was used to declare that the fish is like-able.
I'm not sure if I explained it well or if it's completely correct since I'm following through this guide for the first time and I know as much Japanese as was taught so far. Feel free to correct me.
Okay.... I can either say
Okay....
I can either say 私はひまです。(watashi wa hima desu) which is considered formal. Or, if I am with friends, I can choose to say 私はひまだ。(watashi wa hima da.) They both mean the exact same thing: I am free (as in not busy). Does that make sense? "Da" basically replaces "desu". You /need/ to have that in this sentence. It's a simple format of X は Y です／だ。
Now for when to use "na" at the end... I was also very confused at the beginning as well... and i'm not sure how to explain it grammatically.. but this is how I made sense of it.
So let's take the word beautiful for example... きれいな (kireina)
Now I can use it to describe something in two different ways. I can either say "Over there is a beautiful person" or "That person over there is beautiful." When the adjective (beautiful) is directly in front of the noun (person), that is when you would use "na". Soo...
1. "Over there is a beautiful person" --> あそこはきれいな人だ。(asoko wa kireina hito da).
2. "That person over there is beautiful." --> あの人はきれいだ。(ano hito wa kirei da).
asoko and ano mean the same thing. just ignore that for now if you haven't learnt that yet.
aside from that, i really hope this helps!! if you have any more questions.. ask again!
ps. there's been a mistranslation as 魚が好きなタイプ means --> "favourite type of fish"
i don't understand kanji+i =
i don't understand
kanji+i = i-adjective
kirei, kirai = na-adjective
all the rest = na-adjective
but suki 好き is a kanji and a hiragana
so it shoudl be an i-adjective
and yet you use 'na' in your example! 好きな
so i really don't understand when you know you have a na- or i-adjective
and why no list included? now i only know 4 japanese adjectives
kirei kirai suki and takai.
no lists?
suki ends in ki （き）, not in
suki ends in ki （き）, not in i （い）. Therefore it is not an i-adjective. :)
It's not because it ends in a hiragana that it becomes an i-adjective, it is because it ends in hiragana-i; い
kirei and kirai are the exceptions to the rule and therefore they are na-adjectives, even though they end in い。
I hope this helps! ^^
So there are two different
So there are two different types of adjectives: い and な right? it has nothing to do if its in kanji or not. so don't worry about that at all.
Unfortunately it's one of those things that you just have to memorize. But I can give you a list of a few adjectives in hiragana, kanji and then english. (*note that some of them don't use any kanji at all).
い - adjectives:
あたらしい 新しい new
あつい 暑い hot (weather)
あつい 熱い hot (objects)
いそがしい 忙しい busy (people/days)
おおきい 大きい large
おもしろい 面白い interesting
こわい 怖い frightening
さむい 寒い cold (objects - not used for people)
たかい 高い expensive
とのしい 楽しい fun
ちいさい 小さい small
つまらない boring
ふるい 古い old (thing - not used for people)
むずかしい 難しい difficult
やさしい easy (problem); kind (person)
やすい 安い inexpensive; cheap (thing)
あたまがいい 頭がいい bright; smart; clever (conjugates like いい)
かっこいい great looking; cool (conjugates like いい）
かわいい cute
せがたかい 背が高い tall
せがひくい 背が低い short (stature)
ながい 長い long
はやい 速い fast
みじかい 短い short (length)
な - adjectives:
きらい（な） 嫌い disgusted with; to dislike (~が)
きれい（な） beautiful; clean
げんき（な） 元気 healthy; energetic
しずか（な） 静か quiet
すき（な） 好き fond of; to like (~が)
だいきらい（な）大嫌い to hate
だいすき（な） 大好き very fond of; to love
にぎやか（な） lively
ハンサム（な） handsome
ひま（な） 暇 not busy; to have a lot of free time
たいへん（な） 大変 tough (situation)
しんせつ（な） 親切 kind
べんり（な） 便利 convenient
じょうず（な） 上手 skillful; good at... (~が)
へた（な） 下手 clumsy; poor at... (~が)
ゆうめい（な） 有名 famous
i hope that this helped :)
My suggestion to you, or
My suggestion to you, or anyone, is to read the lessons more than once. Sometimes our brain doesn't process what it is being told the first time, and it's only with subsequent reading do we "understand" the material. This is sometimes due to us reading too fast or the information being explained cumbersomely.
Now, for your concern:
TaeKim explains why 'kirei' and 'kirai' are na-adjectives. When 'kirei' is written in kanji - 綺麗 or 奇麗 - you can see there is no trialing 'i' hiragana. Therefore, it is treated as a na-adj, even when written in hiragana form, apparently. With 'kirai', in its kanji form 「嫌い」 you have the trailing 'i' attached to the kanji. Even so, it gets treated like a na-adj because of the word from which it derived from, 'kirau'. Confusing? Yes. But as TaeKim mentions, this is just one of those few exceptions to the rules that you just have to commit to memory. Think of the English spelling rule "i before e except after c." There are exceptions for some words where the e comes before the i even when there is no c involved, or even with a c, the e still comes before the i. You just have to pay attention to the correct way and learn it.
Yes, 'suki' is a kanji + hiragana, but the hiragana is 'ki' not 'i' - 「き」 and 「い」 are two different characters. Therefore it is not an i-adj, but a na-adj. Whereas 'takai' is a kanji + hiragana with the hiragana being 'i' - 「高い」. When you have that configuration, that is when you're dealing with an i-adj, and must drop the 'i' in order to do conjugation. Except when dealing with the exceptions like we covered before.
And as far as "no list included," the very next page is a practice page with a slew of adjectives to help you with the lesson. You got a little impatient. ;)
Hope this helps. Anybody who can clarify better than this feel free to do so. :)
I-adjectives are kanji+い, い
I-adjectives are kanji+い, い being the hiragana "i", not the sound "i".
好き's last hiragana is き, not い, so it's not an i-adjective. We should better write "い-adjectives" and "な-adjectives".
i-adjectives end in い and
i-adjectives end in い and only い, they never end in き、し、ち、ひ、etc. And it doesn't have to include a kanji in its spelling to be an i-adjective, e.g. すごい is usually written in kana but is an i-adjective. Of course, すごい also has a kanji variation, 凄い, but so does きれい, 奇麗. Whether kanji are usually included in the spelling doesn't change anything. The only way you can distinguish them is:
if adjective ends in anything but い
then it's a na-adjective
else it may be either of them (most of the time it's an i-adjective）
好き（すき) ends in き - な
好き（すき) ends in き - な adjective
高い (たかい） ends in い - い adjective
You need to stop thinking in terms of romaji.
In this case you have to see
In this case you have to see the world "suki" as a japanese person. For a japanese, it doesn't end in "i", it ends in "き" (ki). The adjective needs to end in a hiragana い to be considered an i-adjective. And of course, there are a few exceptions like "kirei" that ends in い, but is a na-adjective.
The way my teacher taught it
The way my teacher taught it was that all adjectives that end in the character 'i' (sorry this computer doesn't have Japanese characters) are i adjectives except kirai and anything that ends in -ei, like kirei or yuumei. This was when I was just starting Japanese however, I'm not sure how well it holds for very advanced words, but I haven't found another exception yet.
I have two questions: 1) Can
I have two questions:
1) Can I say 友達は親切な人じゃない - "The friend is not a kind person"? Or do I say 友達は親切じゃない人?
2) Why is "high price restaurant" expressed as 値段が高いレストラン? Why not 高い値段レストラン, just like 高いビル in one of the examples?
Thank you!!!
All you are changing is what
All you are changing is what is modified and what is modifying.
While 友達は親切じゃない人 is grammatically acceptable, it is not a complete sentence as it stands. You have marked 友達 as the topic, have said the noun 親切じゃない人, but have not included a verb. One could say 友達は親切じゃない人なんです (or some other variation on the state-of-being) to close the phrase, although this is probably more roundabout than one needs to be. 友達は親切な人じゃない is a complete sentence as is.
For the second, you are again only reversing what is modifying what. The second, 高い値段レストラン, would probably be 高い値段のレストラン in more proper speech. Particles like の tend to disappear without a reason in casual speech though, so it not being there isn't so big of a deal.
Hope that was sensical enough for you ^_^"
I'm not entirely sure, but it
I'm not entirely sure, but it seems you could say both in number one. Though, in your second variation, I would drop 人 as it seems you could do without it.
In your second question: 値段が高いレストラン translates literally as "the prices at expensive restaurants". Price is the noun specifically being talked about, which is why it's marked by 'ga', and expensive is modifying restaurant. If you used your version 高い値段レストラン (which literal trans of that would be "high price restaurant") you have 'takai' modifying 'nedan' which is fine. But, I think you would need a particle between 'price' and 'restaurant' to connect the two nouns to make it grammatically correct. Which particle, I'm not sure; maybe の but then you might have to rearrange it so that it could read レストランの高い値段, literal trans being "restaurant's high/expensive prices." Or use the 'ga' or 'ha' particle again: 高い値段がレストラン, lit. trans. "the high prices at restaurants."
So, it's a matter of grammatical correctness. Again, I'm not entirely sure. Feel free to make corrections, anyone. Appropriate responses can only help us in learning. :)
Question: Is there a
Question: Is there a difference between あんまり and あまり and how they are used? They are used in the examples above:
（１） 値段があんまりよくない。
（１） 値段が高いレストランはあまり好きじゃない。
Does it have anything to do with i- or na-adjectives? Thanks
The only difference I can
The only difference I can think of is that あんまり is the colloquial form of あまり
I think in written or more formal situations using あまり is better than あんまり. They are the same word so there is no difference in meaning.
There's no diffence, they
There's no diffence, they mean exactly the same thing and they are used in the same way.
sorry again, （２） 彼はかっこよかった！ -
sorry again,
（２） 彼はかっこよかった！
- He looked really cool!
don't you mean "he was cool" ?
where you got the "looked" i do not understand
and the "really" ?
かっこよかった = was cool
right? =S
Actually, kakkoii means
Actually, kakkoii means "really cool/very cool", it can be "stylish" or "really good-looking" also. You interpreted the sentence in the correct way, the tricky part of the sentence is the word "kakkoii"
Whilst かっこう (the noun) can
Whilst かっこう (the noun) can refer to 'manner' it also refers significantly to 'shape' or 'form' or 'appearance' which are quite shallow and visual things to perceive.
And besides, in English, saying that someone was or looked cool are in many cases functionally equivalent sentences. For example, there is little difference between:
"I went to see [singer] live on stage - he loooked really cool!"
and
"I went to see [singer] live in stage - he was really cool!"
As for where the 'really' comes from then well, probably the exclaimation mark? Just imagine it said in an excited schoolgirl voice and you aren't far off.
（１） 魚が好きなタイプ。- Type that
（１） 魚が好きなタイプ。- Type that likes fish.
（２） 魚が好きじゃないタイプ。- Type that does not like fish.
（３） 魚が好きだったタイプ。- Type that liked fish.
（４） 魚が好きじゃなかったタイプ。- Type that did not like fish.
here you use the adjectv-na-noun ordre
but only in the first sentence i see the na
where is the na in the 2,3 and 4?
The な is only necessary for
The な is only necessary for な-adjectives (while the particle does show up in other places, I'm not talking about that right now ^_^").
ない、だった、なかった are not な-adjectives. All of these are conjugations covered in the state-of-being page.
Can you
Can you say;
友達は親切だ。
友達は親切だった。
and so on?
Yes, you can.
Yes, you can.
Wait, so in the end where
Wait, so in the end where you're talking about the exception of the adjective "good", do the conjugations for いい have the 'i' sound (ee) or the 'yo' sound?
Example: よかった and よくなかった.
It seems like the first example has the 'i' sound and the second has the 'yo' sound.
Pretty sure it is said the
Pretty sure it is said the way it looks:
yokatta and yoku nakatta.
My Japanese friend just told
My Japanese friend just told me that no one that speaks Japanese will never say
"高くなかったビル." But rather ”ビルは高くなかった。”
Can someone explain this to me?
I think you are not seeing
I think you are not seeing the difference:
高くなかったビル / a building that wasn't high
Here 高い is used as an attribute that modifies a noun.
ビルは高くなかった / the building wasn't high
Here 高い is used as the sentence's "predicate". 高い makes a statement about the topic ビル.
These sentences do not have the same meaning! Even if it seems so.
One of the main points to
One of the main points to make is that 高くなかったビル is not a complete sentence as it stands. This is a noun. One could finish this with any sort of noun clause (as a random, very simple example, 高くなかったビル入った).
ビルは高くなかった, on the other hand, is a complete sentence already.
I don't get this actually,
I don't get this actually, not very clear. Like you have said in the na adjective part, Bob likes Fish as so:
ボブは魚が好きだ
Then when you change to types that like fish it becomes
魚が好きなタイプ
so then my question is...can't you put
魚が好きなボブ?
Confused with the examples given. Anyways as you have said that 'like' in an adjective then my question is,
If like is an adjective, can I use any other word like this too?
Which means can I use cut and just add 'jyanai' at the back to become 'not cut'? Or is it specific that some words are actually adjectives and some words are actually verbs in Japanese but when translated into English they are all verbs? Or is it that Adjectives are Verbs and Verbs are Adjectives in japanese and that we can use it whenever we want to? Confused.....
Sorry for the confusing message...but that's why I don't understand and I can't explain it to the fullest....
Thanks for the help.
You can say 魚が好きなボブ
You can say 魚が好きなボブ actually.
Cut is a verb so you wouldn't negate it by adding じゃない to it. You would conjugate the verb to its negative form.
You can say it, but it means
You can say it, but it means a completely different thing.
魚が好きなボブだ = (This is) Bob who likes fish.
ボブは魚が好きだ = Bob likes fish.
About stringing multiple
About stringing multiple adjectives successively.
Shouldn't there be inflections of the adjectives.
so 'shizuka'becomes shizukade and
'takai' becomes takakute??????????????????????????
Yes, that is half correct.
Yes, that is half correct. You wouldn't say 「このビルは静かで高くてです」though. In ending the sentence in te-form, the reader or the person you are speaking to will be expecting you to say more/write more. From what I understand, te-form is to help make sentences flow. It also indicates that there is more to be said/written. The correct way to write this sentence with te-form would be as followed:
「このビルは静かで高いです」 - This building is quiet and tall.
te-form and adjectives:
For na-adjectives, add 「で」: 静か - 静かで
For i-adjectives, drop the「い」and add「くて」: 高い - 高くて
Hope this helps! :D
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