な

[seiryuu]

Is な used as a adjective marker?:|

[Cesar]

Far I know, "Na" is used on the so called Na Adjectives/Semi-Adjectives. Their use is slightly different from the "I Adjectives". Let me use an example with Shinsetsu (kind, gentle).
Tanaka san wa shinsetsu desu. --> Mr. Tanaka is gentle. [Just added the adjective before the verb]
Tanaka san wa shinsetsuna hito desu. --> Mr. Tanaka is a gentle person. [As the Na Adjective is placed before a noun, you must add -na to it]

That is the main difference. Off course, there might be a few others, but I either don't remember or I have not learned them yet.

[seiryuu]

OK

[Sachi]

No, I don't think so. But they do sort-of signify "Hello!! This is a な-adj!!" in a way..

There are two types of adjectives: い-adj. and な-adj.
な-adj. end in な, but when conjugated and such, drop the な. ex.

「きれいな花」- "Pretty flower" - Just an adjective and a noun
「花はきれいだった。」- "The flower was pretty." - A noun with a conjugated adjective (past. pos. inf.)

い-adj do not end in な; they end in い. They also conjugate slightly differently.

Does that help at all? And eveyone, please feel free to correct me!

[AJBryant]

To be clear, な-adjectives do NOT conjugate. They are frozen in (noun) form. The tense is supplied by the use of the copula だ, です, or one of the painfully polite variants.


Tony

[TrilinguisT]

na adjective --

anohito wa hen desu - that person over there is weird.
anohito wa hen NA hito desu - that person over there is a weird person.

na is only used to describe a noun. to connect na-adjectives with other adjectives, use a de ( te-form of desu)

anohito wa hen de minikui desu - that person over there is weird and ugly.

negative form of na-adjectives rules. drop the na and attach a dewa nai.

anohito wa hen dewa nai desu - that person over there is not weird

.....that's the gist of it.. if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

[punkgrl326]

There's a useful page on this site about na-adjectives:
na-adjectives

[valerie]

although, just to be confusing you'll often hear people use な at the end of　い-adjectives when not in a sentence.

たとえば： i'd introduce something kind of confusing in class and my students would exclaim むずかしい な！ or i'd tell my japanese coworker about a vacation i was about to go on and she'd reply いい な！

[richvh]

But that's the sentence-end な rather than the -na adjective pre-noun な。

[valerie]

you're right. i'm just saying if you're new to learning japanese don't get confused with な getting thrown in everywhere. just because people say いい な！ all the time doesn't mean that いいなかった is correct because it's not.

[keatonatron]

People say 簡単な but they don't say 簡単なかった

You mean, people don't say いいじゃなかった