Lesson 4Adjectives
Now, let's learn about "adjectives" !
Adjectives are describing words, such as: interesting, big, nice, cold, convenient, etc.
Learning adjectives will help you describe more situations and feelings !
There are 2 categories of adjectives in Japanese : い adjective and な adjective
い adjective
Adjectives that end with the hiragana letter い are called い adjectives.
Examples
あつい
たかい
おいしい
かわいい
きれいkirei (beautiful), きらいkirai (don't like), and ゆうめいyūmei (famous), etc. are exceptions. They are なna adjectives even though they end with the letter いi.
い adjectives conjugate !
That means they change forms when used in a negative or past tense.
Replace the last いi with くないkunai to convert affirmative
to negative.
Replace the last いi with かったkatta to convert present tense
to past tense.
present
おもしろい(です)
past
おもしろいかった(です)
おもしろいくない(です)
おもしろいくなかった(です)
Because adjectives themselves conjugate, the verb "to be" ですdesu always remains present affirmative.
irregular adjective いい
The adjective いいii (nice, good) is irregular.
But it's a frequently used adjective so let's memorize its conjugation.
Replace the last い(i) with くない(kunai) and change the first い(i) to よ(yo) to convert affirmative to negative.
Replace the last い(i) with くない(kunai) and change the first い(i) to よ(yo) to convert affirmative to negative.
present
いい(です)
past
いいよかった(です)
いいよくない(です)
いいよくなかった(です)
Example phrases using い adjective
あたらしい カメラを
かいました。
I bought a new camera.
おいしかったですが
たかくなかったです。
It was delicious, but it was not expensive.
な adjective
The adjectives that don't end with the hiragana letter い are all な adjectives.
Examples
しずか
べんり
しんせつ
きれいkirei (beautiful), きらいkirai (don't like), and ゆうめいyūmei (famous), etc. are exceptions. They are なna adjectives even though they end with the letter いi.
If you don't read Hiragana....
Some な adjectives such as "be n ri" (convenient) end with the sound " i " when transcribed in rōmaji. But when written in Japanese letters, the last letter of "benri" is り , not い. Therefore, "benri" is not いadjective but なadjective. A good rule to remember is that い adjectives always have another vowel immediately before the last vowel " i " (eg: takai, atsui, tanoshii, etc.) when written in rōma-ji.
な adjectives do not conjugate,
so the verb "to be" です conjugates. Just like in English !
present
しんせつ (です)
past
しんせつ (でした)
しんせつ (ではありません)
しんせつ (ではありませんでした)
When describing nouns
when a な(na) adjective is placed right before a noun, な(na) should be added at the end of the adjective. That's why they are called "な(na) adjective" ! This doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, it is just a grammatical rule.
ジョー は
しんせつな ひとです。
Joe is a kind person.
ハワイ は
きれいな しま です。
Hawaii is a beautiful island.
Learning how to use adjectives is very important, as they are a large part of the vocabulary.
Once you feel confident with adjectives,
you can go ahead and move on to sentence models !