Japanese Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe nouns and pronouns by showing that they have a certain quality; adjectives tell what kind. In Japanese they can either come directly before a noun, as in English, or after a particle.
大きい犬です。(This is) a big dog.
この犬は大きいです。This dog is big.
The two types of Japanese adjectives
Japanese has two main categories of adjective, the い and な adjective. They do not carry different nuances but do get conjugated in different ways.
| 形容詞：い-Adjectives | 形容動詞：な-Adjectives |
|---|---|
| 新しい（あたらし>い・ new） | 簡単な （かんたんな・simple |
| 古い（ふるい・old) | 複雑な （ふくざつ>な・complicated) |
| 大きい （おおきい・big) | 大切な （大切な・important) |
| 小さい （ちいさい・small) | 特別な （とくべつな・especial) |
| 美味しい （おいしい・delicious) | 有名な （ゆうめいな・famous) |
い adjectives
The い of an い adjective is part of the word itself and is conjugated directly. The same pattern of conjugation is followed by all い adjectives and, although the conjugations in this chart are broken down for clarity, the highlighted endings can simply be pasted onto other い adjectives as is. Just like verbs, adjectives also have polite and casual forms.
- Most forms involve replacing い with something else and this will be shown in bold.
- One variant of the polite form is made by adding the copula です onto the plain form and this will be shown in blue.
- To make negative forms of adjectives, ない is added onto the く form of an adjective. This will be shown in orange.
| 小さい（ちいさい・small） | 大きい（おおきい・big) | |
|---|---|---|
| Plain non-past | 小さい | 大きい |
| Plain past | 小さかった | 大きかった |
| Plain negative | 小さくない | 大きくない |
| Plain negative past | 小さくなかった | 大きくなかった |
| Polite non-past | 小さいです | 大きいです |
| Polite past | 小さかったです | 大きかったです |
| Polite negative 1 | 小さくありません | 大きくありません |
| Polite negative 2 | 小さくないです | 大きくないです |
| Polite negative past 1 | 小さくありませんでした | 大きくありません |
| Polite negative past 2 | 小さくなかったです | 大きくなかったです |
Both of the listed polite negative forms are very similar. The first variant is slightly more formal, the second is slightly more colloquial.
この家は大きいです。This is a big house.
彼女の鼻がとても小さかったです。Her nose was very small.
な adjectives
This type of adjective is a little bit more complicated. The な of a な adjective is not actually part of the word, like the い of an い adjective is, but is rather the second of Japanese’s three copulas. (The first one is だ・です, which we learned about on page 4).
Unlike い adjectives, a な adjective itself does not conjugate. Depending on its place in the sentence a な adjective will take either the copula な or the copula だ and this copula is conjugated to show whether the verb is positive/negative or past/non-past
- • な is an attributive copula; when a な adjective comes directly before the noun it modifies a conjugation of な is added onto the adjective. な connects adjectives and nouns.
- • だ is a predicative copula; when a な adjective ends a sentence, a conjugation of だ (not な) is used.
| Form/Conjugation | The copula な | The copla だ |
|---|---|---|
| Plain past | だった | だった |
| Plain negative | でない | （では・じゃ）ない |
| Plain negative past | でなかった | （では・じゃ）なかった |
| Polite non-past | N/A | です |
| Polite past | N/A | でした |
| Polite negative 1 | N/A | (では・じゃ）ありません |
| Polite negative 2 | N/A | (では・じゃ）ないです |
| Polite negative past 1 | N/A | (では・じゃ）なかったです |
| Polite negative past 2 | N/A | (では・じゃ）ありませんでした |
Just as with い adjectives, the variant 1 is slightly more formal and variant 2 is slightly more colloquial. Similarly, じゃ and では serve the same function. じゃ is a contraction of では and is often used in speech, whereas では is more commonly used in writing.
In the below examples, notice how な or だ is used depending on whether the adjective comes before or after the noun it modifies.
この人は有名だ。This person is famous.
これは有名な人だ。This is a famous person
このファイルは大切ではない。This file is not important.
これは大切でないファイルだ。This is a not-important file
It is common (and much simpler) to use な to connect an adjective to a noun and then conjugate だ・です, rather than な, to show whether the statement is positive/negative or past/non-past.
これは大切なファイルではない(です)。This is not an important file.