Have a Question about some Grammar point? Share it with the world!
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akai
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by akai » Sat 04.23.2005 1:11 pm
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

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Spaztick
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by Spaztick » Sat 04.23.2005 9:36 pm
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)
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akai
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by akai » Sun 04.24.2005 4:46 am
ありがとうございます!分ります。
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Mukade
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by Mukade » Sun 04.24.2005 6:46 am
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。
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Spaztick
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by Spaztick » Sun 04.24.2005 9:24 pm
I've been wondering, how do you know when it's just a regular noun or a "na" noun/adjective/etc?
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battousai
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by battousai » Sun 04.24.2005 10:24 pm
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.
Last edited by
battousai on Sun 04.24.2005 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Spaztick
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by Spaztick » Mon 04.25.2005 12:11 pm
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.
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maikeru
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by maikeru » Tue 04.26.2005 1:47 am
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.
