-na Adjectives

Submitted by admin on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 16:46

About -na Adjectives in Japanese

A Prelude...

BEFORE THE LESSON YOU NEED TO KNOW...

Adjectives in Japanese are very different from English adjectives in that they change shape. That is, they have past & negative variations.

始めましょう！ Let's begin...

Adjectives are split into 2 groups, -i adjectives and -na adjectives. For -i adjectives click here

2) -na ADJECTIVES - the easy kind! They don't change much!

An example of an -na adjective is げんき genki (healthy, vigorous, energetic...) or きれい kirei (pretty, beautiful) or しずか shizuka (quiet) [notice the endings are all different & may include an -i ending!]

Someone [Ken Suzuki] mentioned that NA adjectives are usually made of 2 kanji. For example [きれい is 綺麗 || すてき is 素敵] whereas -i adjectives are usually made of one kanji plus at least one hiragana and ends in a hiragana i . This is good only if you know the kanji! If you don't, don't worry, you will be able to tell the difference between -na and -i adjectives in time.

When a -na adjective is placed before a noun, a -na is added: genki (energetic) >>> genki na ko - a energetic (healthy) child
Very often -na adjectives actually act like nouns!

LET'S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THIS...

SENTENCE #1: non-past lone adjective!

あなたは　きれい　です。
anata wa kirei desu.
You are beautiful.

Here the adjective kirei (beautiful) is used by itself (not modifying a noun or anything). It doesn't change at all!

Easy enough! But let's add a noun...

SENTENCE #2: non-past modifying adjective!

あなたは　きれい　な　人　です。
anata wa kirei na hito desu.
You are a beautiful person.

Now the adjective kirei is modifying a noun hito (person). Therefore the -na is added.

for -na adjectives there the only change is in adding or taking away the na . Let's go negative...

SENTENCE #3: non-past negative!

あなたは　きれい　では　ありません。
anata wa kirei dewa arimasen.
You are NOT beautiful.

Notice the -na adjective doesn't change. Whereas with -i adjectives , the adjective changes and not the verb [ anata wa kawakunai desu. You are not cute.]
Note you can also use the more familiar form of ja nai instead of dewa arimasen . & the wa in dewa is actually a particle and is written with the hiragana ha but pronounced wa.

SENTENCE #4: past!

あなたは　きれい　でした。
anata wa kirei deshita.
You were beautiful.

Again nothing changes but the verb. -na adjectives act very much like nouns.

Easy! Just remember the -na is added before nouns >>> kirei na neko - beautiful cat

SENTENCE #5: past negative!

あなたは　きれい　ではありませんでした。
anata wa kirei dewa arimasen deshita.
You were not beautiful.

Once again we simply treat the -na adjective as a noun and only the verb changes. The familiar form would be anata wa kirei ja nakatta.

*** I SUGGEST MEMORIZING A FEW GOOD ONE-WORD EXAMPLES. THE FOLLOWING ARE USED JUST AS THEY ARE VERY OFTEN IN JAPANESE:

- by itself	しずか shizuka quiet!	べんり benri (That's) convenient!
- modifying a noun; add -na	しずかな (ところ) shizuka na (tokoro) A quiet (place.)	べんり　な　(ところ) benri na (tokoro ) a convenient (place!)

CLICK HERE TO STUDY THE -i ADJECTIVES

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dewa?

Submitted by Sam Goyal on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 15:14.

what does dewa mean?
and what does deshita mean?(is it the past form of DESU?

Live to eat , don't eat to live :€

Deshita

Submitted by Flash Trauma on Sun, 12/23/2012 - 20:53.

Not sure about "dewa", but "deshita" is the past tense of "desu".

Freedom is the depression caused by the awareness of reality.

dewa vs. ja

Submitted by pwiggles on Tue, 11/16/2010 - 01:41.

in my japanese class I was taught to use じゃありません and じゃありませんでした for negative and past negative な form adjectives. i didnt learn ではありません or ではありませんでした. which one is more commonly used?