Class Session 6a
Chapter 4
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Some Useful Adjectives (pre-nominal, predicate forms)
•
i-type and na-type Adjectives
•
Conjugating Adjectives in the Polite Present Tense
•
Confirming with the Particle ne
•
Emphasizing with the Particle yo
•
The Question Words donna and dō
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Some Useful Adjectives (pre-nominal, predicate forms)
• In English an adjective can be used as a pre-nominal modifier (placed before the
noun it modifies) or as a sentence predicate (a predicate placed at the end of a
sentence):
An old building
The building is old .
(pre-nominal use)
(predicate use)
• The same is true for Japanese:
•
•
•
•
•
furui tatemono
(an) old building
(pre-nominal use)
tatemono wa furui desu.
The building is old.
(predicate use)
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i-type and na-type Adjectives (p56-57)
• There are two kinds of Japanese adjectives1:
true adjectives (or i-type) that end in ii or i when used in the pre-nominal
form
na adjectives (or na-type) that take the particle na when used in the
prenominal form
• i-type adjectives are native Japanese words (if written in kanji, they have one kanji and
one or more hiragana characters); the stem is the part without the i
furui tatemono
old building
atarashii tatemono
new building
• Most na-type adjectives are borrowed from Chinese; the stem is the part without the na
kirei na tatemono rippa na tatemono
pretty building
splendid building
• Adjectives borrowed from foreign languages today tend to be na-type
----------------------------------------1 There is a third type formed with the particle no which we will described later.
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Sample Adjectives
(pages 56-57 in textbook)
i-type (stem + i)
akarui
atarashii
furui
hiroi
isogashii
kawaii
kibishii
oishii
kitanai
omoshiroi
semai
takai
ookii
chiisai
okashii
明い
新しい
古い
広い
忙しい
かわいい
厳しい
おいしい*
きたない
おもしろい
狭い
高い
大きい**
小さい **
おかしい**
na-type (stem + na)
bright
new
old
spacious
busy
cute
strict
delicious
dirty
interesting
narrow
expensive, high
big
small
funny
benri na 便利な
convenient
fuben na 不便な
inconvenient
ijiwaru na 意地悪な nasty, mean
kirei na
きれいな pretty
majime na 真面目な serious
rippa na 立派な
splendid
shizuka na 静かな
quiet
anzen na 安全な
safe
modan na モダンな modern
yuniiku
ユニイークな unique
genki na 元気な
healthy
kantan na 簡単な
easy, simple
ooki na
大きな
big
chiisa na 小さな
small
okashi na おかしな funny
-------------------------------------* 美味しい is non-standard for this adjective
** These adjectives have both i-type and na-type forms (they drop the final i in the na-form)
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More on na-type adjectives?
• i-type adjectives are native Japanese words
• na-type adjectives were originally borrowed from Chinese
• Chinese does not have “parts of speech” (words can be used as adjectives, verbs or
other grammatical forms).
• The stem of na-type adjectives are generally Chinese nouns (most Chinese words
consist of two kanji characters)
anzen (安全) means “safety” or “safeness” in Chinese
kirei (きれい, originally 奇麗) means “beauty” or “prettiness” in Chinese
• In order to convert a Chinese “noun” to adjective in Japanese the Japanese
verb naru (an old form of the verb to be) was added to the to the noun
• Over time, the –ru of naru was dropped:
anzen naru became anzen na
kirei naru became kirei na
• If you remember this bit of trivia, understanding some of the things we do (or don’t)
do with na-type adjectives later on may make more sense to you
Last point: there are no i-type adjectives that end in –ei in Japanese
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Conjugating Adjectives in the Polite Present Tense
• Affirmative:
• Negative
i-type
na-type
stem + i + desu
atarashi i desu
(It is) new
stem + desu
kantan desu
(It is) simple
stem + ku + arimasen
stem + ku + nai desu
stem + ja arimasen
stem + dewa arimasen
atarashiku arimase n
atarashiku nai desu
(It is) not new
kantan ja arimasen
kantan dewa arimasen
(It is) not simple
• ii (good) is a colloquial version of the adjective yoi; its negative form is:
yoku arimasen
yoku nai desu
(It is) not good
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Confirming with the Particle ne
• Seek agreement from your conversation partner about what you say by adding the
particle ne to the end of your statement
• The agreement reply can be ee, sō desu (yes it is)
• The disagreement reply can be sō desu ka (with falling-rising intonation) (is it so?)
• Examples:
kyō wa ii tenki desu ne.
Today the weather is good, isn’t it?
ee, sō desu.
Yes, it is.
nihon-go wa kantan desu ne.
Japanese is easy isn’t it?
sō desu ka
Is it?
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Emphasizing with the Particle yo
Use the particle yo at the end of a sentence to emphasize a statement
(think of it as a spoken !):
nihon-go wa kantan desu yo.
Japanese is easy, you know?
sumisu sensei wa yasashii desu yo.
Professor Smith is kind, I tell you!
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The Question Words donna and dō (p60)
• To ask about the state or the property of people and things you can use donna (what
kind of ?) before a noun or dō (how?) at the end of a sentence before desu:
tanaka-san wa donna hito desu ka.
What kind of person is Mr. Tanaka?
nihon-go no kurasu wa dō desu ka.
How is (your) Japanese class?
• In a polite context you can use ikaga instead of dō.
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