Japanese Language Stack Exchange
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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.

A class of words that behaves mostly like verbs (but uses different grammatical endings) and is used to describe properties of nouns. i-adjectives can serve as the predicate of a subject in the main clause (e.g. 空は青い The sky is blue), and can describe any noun by being attached to it as a relative clause (青い空 sky which is blue or simply blue sky).

The name i-adjectives comes from the fact that all members of this class end with the letter い in their dictionary form.

  • is separate class of word that are also used to describe properties of nouns, but behave like nouns and not like verbs.
  • is sometimes used to refer to both na-adjectives and i-adjectives together. These two class are utterly unrelated in Japanese, but they both translate to English adjectives, which makes it necessary for learners to treat them together.
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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 and most European languages (where they are more…
hippietrail
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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 彼女は本当に女らしい／彼女は本当に女みたい? I would love if someone…
phirru
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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 めでたい　→　おめでとうございます There are a couple of others I've…
istrasci
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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 the subject is not currently present in the room. …
Mark Hosang
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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 anything to do with なさいません?
Earthliŋ
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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?
Nap
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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 other adjectives that have -ki forms, e.g. 幼き{おさなき},…
Lukman
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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 there are similar restrictions in Japanese. For…
Lou
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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?
Herb
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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 themselves. However, I have heard this usage…
Zach
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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 "danger" 少{すく}ない means "few"/"scarce", while 少…
Darius Jahandarie
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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 talking a lot about how the zero-pronoun marks the…
user3856370
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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 what does the writer mean? Does the writer mean…
yadokari
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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 the く in negative form of い-adjective. Example:…
Andrew T.
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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 the い and adding かったです. My teacher would correct…
atlantiza
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