Some Useful Adjectives (pre-nominal, predicate forms) i -type and na -type Adjectives

1. Class Session 6a Chapter 4 • 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 Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

2. 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 (pre-nominal use) • The building is old . (predicate use) • The same is true for Japanese: • furui tatemono (pre-nominal use) • (an) old building • tatemono wa furui desu. (predicate use) • The building is old. Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

3. 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 atarashii tatemono • old building 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 • ----------------------------------------- • 1There is a third type formed with the particle no which we will described later. Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

4. Sample Adjectives (pages 56-57 in textbook) i-type (stem + i) na-type (stem + na) akarui明い bright benri na便利な convenient atarashii新しい new fuben na不便な inconvenient furui古い old ijiwaru na意地悪な nasty, mean hiroi広い spacious kirei naきれいな pretty isogashii忙しいbusymajime na真面目な serious kawaiiかわいいcute rippa na立派な splendid kibishii厳しい strict shizuka na静かな quiet oishiiおいしい*delicious anzen na安全な safe kitanaiきたないdirty modan naモダンな modern omoshiroiおもしろい interesting yuniikuユニイークな unique semai狭い narrow genki na元気な healthy takai高い expensive, high kantan na簡単な easy, simple ookii大きい** big ooki na大きな big chiisai小さい ** small chiisa na小さな small okashiiおかしい** funny 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) Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

5. 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 Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

6. Conjugating Adjectives in the Polite Present Tense • Affirmative: i-type na-type • stem + i + desu stem + desu • atarashi i desu kantan desu • (It is) new(It is) simple • Negative stem + ku + arimasen stem + ja arimasen • stem + ku + nai desu stem + dewa arimasen • atarashiku arimase n kantan ja arimasen • atarashiku nai desu kantan dewa arimasen • (It is) not new (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 Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

7. 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: • kyōwa ii tenki desu ne. ee, sō desu. • Today the weather is good, isn’t it? Yes, it is. • nihon-go wa kantan desu ne. sō desu ka • Japanese is easy isn’t it?Is it? Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

8. 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! Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012

9. 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. Japanese 1100-L06a-07-06-2012