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Is 海は青くないです less correct than 海は青ではない? I am just starting to learn and someone said my basic sentence was not polite. I'm trying to practice conjugating adjectives. My goal was to say ”The ocean is not blue".

Eddie Kal
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his4ever247
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2 Answers2

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Just adding some thoughts: I guess it would be correct 青ではない if you are using it as a noun. Example:

好きなのは青ではなくて赤です [The thing I like is not blue, it is red]

But to me, just like the other person said, it also sounds off to say 海は青ではない。

Perhaps you could say 海は青色ではない. I am positive that saying it with 色 makes it acceptable.

Manab
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    でも、グーグルで検索したら、"海は**青色**ではない" は "海は**青**ではない" よりも少ないです。 "海は**青**ではありません" のヒット数は数件ありますが、"海は**青色**ではありません" はゼロです。 – Chocolate Jan 22 '22 at 14:59
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    そうです。どこかで「色がついていたら、形容詞としていつも正しいです」とか読みましたから、そう思ってしまいました。"青い"は青色よりもずっと普通ですから、ヒットがない理由かもしれません。それとも私が随分間違っています 笑。 – Manab Jan 22 '22 at 15:16
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海は青いくないです is ungrammatical. The adjective form of 'blue' is 青い. As I'm sure you've learnt, the negative form is made by removing the final い and adding くない. So it should be 海は青くないです. This sentence is polite. It is made polite by adding です after the i-adjective.

海は青ではない is grammatically correct but it is in plain form (i.e not polite). To turn this into the polite form ではない should be replaced with ではありません. Note that in this sentence the noun, 青, is used rather than the adjective, 青い, of the previous sentence.

For the adjective case you could also say 海は青くありません which is also polite but sounds rather stiff.

Since you are a beginner I should point out that 'not polite' doesn't mean rude. It just means a form you would use with someone with whom you are close.

Edit: Regarding the choice of whether to use a noun or adjective, please see this post. This makes the decision of the HiNative poster to change your sentence from 海は青くないです to 海は青ではない even more bizarre.

user3856370
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  • I think you should learn both. It is vital to know the plain form to construct grammar that is used in the polite form. It is also important to know polite form because you will inevitably be talking to strangers. Note that ではない can be made more casual as じゃない. You will see this a lot too. – user3856370 Mar 19 '21 at 22:09
  • So if I keep writing my sentences like this one: 海は青くないです , I will seem polite, correct? I've been conjugating my adjective practice sentences that way. This 海は青ではない was suggested by someone on HiNative and I was confused. – his4ever247 Mar 19 '21 at 22:11
  • Thank you so much. I will start writing in my journal both so I can get practice both ways. Is there a site with the adjective conjugation with informal way? – his4ever247 Mar 19 '21 at 22:12
  • I don't understand why someone would make that change. If you wait maybe a native speaker can give you some insight that I;m missing. – user3856370 Mar 19 '21 at 22:12
  • You don't need a site for i-adjective conjugation. You already know how to do it. The rule is robust and consistent. – user3856370 Mar 19 '21 at 22:15
  • @user3856370, your post is slightly confusing -- could you elucidate the difference between 海は青[く]{●}ないです and 海は青[で]{●}[は]{●}ないです? Of note, in the latter, 青 is treated grammatically as a noun, while in the former, it is an adjective. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 19 '21 at 23:14
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi I have edited a little. I'm not comfortable writing about ではないです. じゃないです sounds fine, but ではないです sounds weird to me (that could of course just be my lack of experience). If you feel the post would benefit from that addition then please feel free to edit it or add your own answer. – user3856370 Mar 20 '21 at 00:07
  • @user3856370 There is nothing weird-sounding about ではないです. That and ではありません are pretty much interchangable, albeit with the latter being arguably ever-so-slightly more formal and emphatic-sounding. More importantly though, 青くない and 青ではない are *not* interchangable. 海は青ではない kinda sounds to me like 海 is being used as the name/label of some color, which happens to be different from blue. – Will Mar 20 '21 at 00:15
  • @Will "海は青ではない kinda sounds to me like 海 is being used as the name/label of some color," <-- Really? That's not my understanding. I wonder what you would say if the ocean was a colour that didn't have an adjective form? – user3856370 Mar 20 '21 at 00:32
  • Sure, to say "The sea isn't green" you'd use something like 海は緑ではない. The thing is, 青 _does_ have an explicit adjective-い form, so when the speaker nonetheless chooses to use the non-adjective form, I tend to expect a grammatical reason for that choice of words (in the absence of context at least). I guess there could be other stylistic reasons to prefer the non-い-adjective form that I'm not aware of; but at least, I think it deserves mention that 青ではない is less common/usual/natural than 青くない in most scenarios. – Will Mar 20 '21 at 01:22