Questions tagged [i-adjectives]
形容詞. A class of words that behaves mostly like verbs (but uses different grammatical endings) and is used to describe properties of nouns.
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Why does Japanese have two kinds of adjectives? (-i adjectives and -na adjectives)
Japanese has two kinds of adjectives known by several terms but the ones I know are i-adjectives and na-adjectives - why?
I recall that Japanese adjectives are much more like verbs than in English ...
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Contrasting っぽい、らしい、みたい
For example, the following 3:
女っぽい (おんなっぽい)
女らしい (おんならしい)
女みたい (おんなみたい)
In what situations would you use っぽい over らしい？ Does っぽい have negative connotations? Are 女らしい and 女みたい interchangeable as in ...
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～うございます - keigo い-adjectives
I'm not sure if this is actual keigo, or just a polite form of adjectives. Anyway, there are several that we're all familiar with that are still used today.
はやい → おはようございます
ありがたい → ありがとうございます
...
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When to use 欲しがる instead of 欲しい
When does one use 欲しがる instead of 欲しい? For example, in phrases like:
先生は野菜を食べて欲し｛いです・がっています｝。
My incomplete understanding is that the がる form is more formal/polite, but it can only be used when ...
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Why is it なさそう and not なそう
"It seems there is none" is なさそう, which escapes the usual rule for 形容詞 (イ-adjectives), which says "drop the い and add そう".
Is there a historical explanation for this exception? And does it have ...
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When would you use 新{あら}たな and 新{あたら}しい
To say new, the first way that I learned is to use the i-adjective 新しい. But I noticed that the na-adjective 新たな is used a lot in written texts. Is there any difference in when either is used?
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How does -ki form of i-adjectives work? (e.g. 愛しき)
In one of the Bleach anime ending songs, "Hanabi" has the following line:
繋ぎゆく この想い 愛しき 君
"itoshiki" seems to come from "itoshii", but how does this -ki form of i-adjective work? I found a few ...
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Is there an order of adjectives in Japanese?
In English, if we have multiple adjectives modifying a noun, there is a preferred order for those adjectives, for example:
nice long red car
*nice red long car
*long red nice car
I was wondering if ...
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Why can't だ be used after an I-adjective?
I have been constantly told that だ can not be placed after an I-adjective. Why is that?
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correctness of い adjective + です
Generally, in all Japanese language classes, the rule you're taught is that です does not follow い adjectives. Instead, い adjectives can act like stative verbs, and as such terminate a sentence by ...
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i-adjectives that end in a 〜ない which doesn't seem to be 〜無{な}い
I noticed there are many 形容詞{けいようし} (i-adjectives) that end in 〜ない, where the な is not part of the kanji, and doesn't seem to have the meaning 無い.
Examples:
危{あぶ}ない means "dangerous", while 危 means "...
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Different meanings of こわい
I was watching this video (it's actually a really good series, despite the odd presentation).
In it, there is the example:
おばけがこわい。
Ghosts are scary.
No problem there, but the series has been ...
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〜くはない vs 〜くない in adjective negations
As I spend more time in Japan, I pick up habits that I'm not sure are good or bad. My question here is about nuance / occasion of usage.
In formal contexts, how does the impression differ between ...
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Omission of く in negative form of い-adjective
I learnt that the negative form of い-adjective is: remove the trailing い, then add くない. Example: 赤い→赤くない
However, I've been watching Japanese livestream and following her twitter. Sometimes, she omit ...
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い-Adjective Conjugation: かったです vs でした
When we first studied adjective conjugation in my Japanese class, I kept making the same mistake habitually; I would conjugate the past tense of い-adjectives with でした at the end instead of dropping ...
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In what way is the negative form of a verb an adjective?
I was reading the wikipedia page on "predicate," where it mentioned that in Japanese, the negative form of a verb is an adjective. I thought that this was too expansive a statement to be true, but ...
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Would 私は怖い mean "I'm scared" or "I'm scary"?
Or does it mean both? If so, is there any way to explicitly distinguish between "I'm scared" and "I'm scary"?
If it only means one and not the other, how would you say the other?
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Confused in choosing 早い versus 速い
In my understanding, 速い is used for motion and 早い represents "early".
Which one is the correct one in this example?
A: 授業がそろそろ始まるので、早く来てください。
B: 授業がそろそろ始まるので、速く来てください。
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[潔]{いさぎよ}い meaning
Can anyone tell me more about 潔い? I've looked in Goo, Alc, Kenkyusha, and Edict, and the definitions refer to "sportsmanlike", "gracious", or "take it like a man". However, I'm doubtful if these are ...
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Is accent position predictable for -i verbs in Osaka/Kansai?
Background
While I'm not especially confident about the reliability of my sources (Wikipedia (0) (1) (2) and some guys' personal websites), and it's possible that I transcribed some of these wrong, ...
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Origin of 〜かった?
Is it by any chance the case that, historically, the い-adjective ending 〜かった is a contraction originating from 〜くあった, where あった is the past inflection of ある?
To me, it sure sounds plausible, and ...
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Why can we not use に to mark absolute time with i-adjectives?
EDIT: Still looking for a complete answer. Please read the edit below.
This is something I've been wondering for some time now. And this is also not related to relative temporal nouns, I understand ...
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～く form of i-adjectives
I thought I've mastered this but I'm getting confused again.
I thought the ~く form of i-adjectives was used when the adjective modifies the noun, e.g.
新しく家を買う
難しく試験した
I think it's named "...
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Aozora versus Aoi sora
Can we use 青空 and 青い空 interchangeably?
Is there any difference between the two? Which is the most natural?
Thank you!
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What function did あり perform in classical Japanese 形容詞?
In classical Japanese, many uses of 形容詞{けいようし} had あり "embedded" in them, e.g.:
熱からず = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の未然形{みぜんけい}＋「ず」
熱かりたり = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の連用形{れんようけい}＋「たり」
熱かれ = 「熱し」の連用形＋「あり」の命令形{めいれいけい}
熱かる人 = 「熱し」...
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What is the dictionary form of sukunai?
I've been learning adjective conjugations and I've understood that to conjugate an adjective into its negative form you drop the last syllable (～い syllable) and add くない. However, I've run into the ...
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Are there inflections/endings that can be applied to verbs but not i-adjectives? (or vice versa)
After reading in an answer to another question that Japanese adjectives are less inflected than Japanese verbs I'm wondering if there are inflections that can be applied to verbs but not i-adjectives? ...
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が following an i-adj
Seeing 「欲しいが仮眠する」* by a non-native for "I want to take a nap" I thought it is plainly grammatically wrong, but then after encountering 可愛いが in a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVmv_wyU-Ug&...
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What is the origin of the word 無{な}し?
The word なし, of course, means ない, and it is defined as such in dictionaries. But why does this word exist? Are there even any situations where you can say なし but you can't say ない? Is it a remnant of ...
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Using な after い-adjectives
What does it mean to put a な after an い-adjective? For example, many Youtube videos are called begin "いいなCM", and a Japanese text book I have uses this sentence as an example:
この通りを行くと 大きな 交差点がある。
...
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Saying い adjectives without pronouncing the い
As the title above, why do japanese locals remove theいfrom the いadjective when speaking. For example, I have heard words like 早、やば、高 being used when speaking. Is this only used amongst friends (very ...
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What is the difference between 危ない and 危うい?
I came across this question, and found the same meaning in the dictionary for both options
(a-危ない) or (b-危うい) ですから 下がってください
however the answer booklet says it is (a-危ない), what is the difference?
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Why is 温かい used instead of 熱い when ordering a hot drink?
In English, "warm" and "hot" are usually interchangeable when ordering a hot drink. In my experience, "hot" is more frequently used.
I was corrected with 温かいコーヒー when asking for an 熱いコーヒー so I ...
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i-adjective specific intensifiers/qualifiers? e.g. 物凄い {ものすごい}
I noticed that some i-adjectives have specific prefixes that can be used to intensify the quality of the states that are described by the adjectives, similar to "flaming hot", "freezing cold" etc in ...
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I know that the word 広し means 広い, but which rule or grammar is included?
The sentence is from my textbook みんなの日本語
世界広しといえども ...
that means
世界が広いと言っても ...
right?
But what function has it when you use 広し instead of 広い?
During some research I found this
Website/ ...
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Is the construction 'Verb + adjective + noun' possible?
I saw a scan of an official manga that's to be released, however the first speech bubble's grammar confused me.
I am unsure if it is to be read as:
1) 水も滴るイイ男!!
or as
2) 水も滴る。イイ男!!
(1) makes ...
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An i-adjective immediately before 「ください」?
Does it make sense to have an i-adjective (in て-form) immediately before 「ください」?
For example, when asked to choose between hot and cold coffee, can I use 「温かくてください」, or must I turn it into nominal ...
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Alternate spelling for ありがたい, or typo?
I looked up ありがたい in my dictionaries within OSX (looking at this question), and one of the 国語 dictionaries (can't tell which) has the entry listed like this:
ありがた・い 【有り難い・難有い】
You'll notice that ...
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Does the だ get dropped after an い-adjective
I was told how an older non-native lady would say "it's okay!" and that it was perceived to be just like that person and cute many because it was grammatically incorrect. She would say, いいだよ
Now I ...
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Pitch Accent for ~ない and ~たい
It seems to be a pattern for i-adjectives (in their "dictionary-form") to have low intonation on the first and last morae and high intonation in between, at least if they are three morae or more in ...
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Grammatical correctness of 〜好きくない
I saw 未来のミライ the other day. The boy said 〜好きくない regarding many people. Was he making a grammar mistake?
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Is anything implied, but not written, in this nominalization "遠くを見つめる"?
(1) 遠い所を見つめた。
I think means:
"He was looking at some distinct location in the distance."
(2) 遠くまで見つめた。
(3) 遠くを見つめた。
I think both mean:
"He was looking off into the distance and looking for ...
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What's the difference in nuance between multiple 形容詞 (い-adjectives) with and without て-form?
When multiple adjectives refer to the same noun, the adjective(s) other than the last one are usually written in the て-form:
① 大きくて重い本
However writing all adjectives in their い-form is not (...
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Is the volitional form of i-adjectives often used?
According to this question the volitional form of i-adjectives is used quite often -- on a daily basis. But I almost never hear it. I almost see it exclusively in books (or written documents). And if ...
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Why are い-adjectives often used as nouns?
I can't really understand why sometimes い adjectives are transformed to nouns instead of just being used themselves.
I.E.
白い鳥 has 300,000 google hits while 白の鳥 has 4 million.
近い家 has 113,000 ...
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Indicative form of an i-adjective used adverbially
As expected, the adverbial form (aka 連用形) of an i-adjective ...く can be used as an intensifying adverb to an adjectival predicate:
すごく速い
But there are cases where the indicative non-past ...
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Why is there a な in this sentence?
I am translating the following sentence I found in my workbook.
美味しそうな写真を見て、思わず[涎]{よだれ}が出た。
美味しい is an i-adjective, so why is there a な?
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Question about i-adjective without 「い」followed by 「の」
妖しの怪談編
I found that 「妖しい」is an i-adjective but in this case the alphabet 「い」is missing. For my understanding, the way to change i-adjective is to replace the last 「い」with「さ」. Or is this a way to ...
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Double negation of an i-adjective
Does it exist as such, the double negation of an i-adjective, e.g.: おいしくなくない? I was told that I should use おいしくなく は ない instead. Is that right? Is it a rule? Would it depend on context which was a ...
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