n-desu

[akai]

I have tried for months to try to understand the n-desu form.

Example:

Minasan ni kikitai koto ga arundesu.
皆さんに聞きたい事があるんです


I use it a lot in Japanese class, but I don't understand why. Thanks in advance

[Spaztick]

the" -n desu" is the polite form of "-n da." "-nda" is the shorter and easier way to say "no" or "noda" (just a "no" is very feminine, so guys and most girls usually add a "da" or "desu" at the end).

Basically, the -nda is an explainatory tone:

なぜからがすきの？ - why do you like him? (the "no" at the end implies that the person wants an explaination)
いい人んだ。- he is a good person (explainatory tone)

[akai]

ありがとうございます！分ります。

[Mukade]

Just remember that the んです form is used slightly differently with verbs, adjectives and nouns.

With verbs and い-adjectives, you just add んです:
高いんです。
食べるんですよ。(Keep your verb in Plain Form!)

With な-adjectives and nouns, you add な and then んです:
元気なんですね。
いい人なんです。

[Spaztick]

I've been wondering, how do you know when it's just a regular noun or a "na" noun/adjective/etc?

[battousai]

Eh...well there is no such thing as a "na" noun. The rule of using ん です is simply that when using it after any noun you add な and then ん です。

The question does apply to adjectives though. Knowing an adjective is a な adjective or an い adjective is just something you have to learn with the adjective. Of course an い adjective ends with the extra い sound so you when you see words like 忙しい or 難しい you just know it is an い adjective. Where most people get confused is words like きれい that end in い but are really な adjectives. As a rule of thumb, I just learn な adjectives with the な as apart of the pronunciation. I believe most people learn like this anyway. So I know きれい as きれい な or 静か as 静か な. Most dictionaries also list adjectives with the word and then in parenthesis whether it is i or na.

Then as I always say..in Japanese there are the weird things.. like 大きい and 大き な. Sigh..

Edit: I also wanted to throw in there are 5 reasons in total for using n desu - explanatory, redundancy, request, regret, and exclamation. Don't really want to run through them all, but I'm sure you can find explanations on them somewhere.

[Spaztick]

You can tell which of the adj that end in i that aren't -i adj because they were orginally in kanji, like kawaii. I can't remember the kanji for it, but at least that's the only i ending non -i adjective I know of.

[maikeru]

I have read that 'i' adjectives end in 'ai', 'ii', 'ui', or 'oi', never 'ei'. So one can work out that a word like 'kirei' (beutiful) or 'yuumei' (famous) are 'na' adjectives. 'kirai' (hate), and 'tokui' (good at) are also 'na' adjectives.