Having given grammar a major focus in my studies of Japanese, I’m pretty sensitive to incorrect or unusual grammar. One thing I have come across a few times in the last year or so is a sentence where what is supposed to be an i-adjective (ex: kawaii) is treated like a noun. I’ll give a… Read More »
Reading foreign language material is always an adventure, especially when you come across grammar you’ve never seen before. Oftentimes, you can just figure out the meaning from context, but I’m the type of person that wants to understand the grammar completely so I can grasp any nuances involved and potentially learn to use the patterns… Read More »
Color words in Japanese exist in two different forms: i-adjectives and nouns. Some of them are present in only one form (usually the noun form), but many are present in both. I’ll present a list of basic colors along with the different forms that color exists as, with the i-adjective form first (if present). Red:… Read More »
One of the big grammatical differences between Japanese and English is the way adjectival clauses are formed, and getting familiar with this will help you on the road to better understanding of Japanese, and more advanced sentence creation. The basic use of single-word adjectives is the same in Japanese in English, and the reverse in… Read More »
As most of you studying Japanese probably know, the language has to types of adjectives: Na-adjectives (i.e. 素敵(な)）and I-adjectives (i.e. 大きい). Each of these has different rules for conjugation into various forms. There is a few words in Japanese that look like Na-adjectives that derived from a I-adjective. Here is a list of a few… Read More »
The Japanese suffix 〜的（てき）is extremely useful and will help you understand many existing Japanese words, as well as act as a tool to create your own. The simplest way to understand this suffix is to see that it turns nouns into (Na) adjectives. 劇（drama) => 劇的 (dramatic) 政治 (politics) => 政治的 (political) 教育… Read More »