Adjectives in Japanese

[WoHenNi]

Originally Posted by chryuop

べんり benri
ふくざつ fukuzatsu
いじわる ijiwaru
びんぼう binbou
しんせつ shinsetsu
ばか baka
Why na adjective usually finish with e? Unless I misunderstood, in that case sorry.

No, I'd wager you're correct. I'm still learning Japanese and I'm nowhere near perfect.

I was just explaining what my Japanese Sensei explained to me and the way I understood it. But... you've open up a discussion so I've done a bit of research. ^^

From what I could find... there are ～いand ～な adjectives... as well as quasi-adjectives. Quasi-adjectives appear to end in every other sound except "E" and I didn't find many that ended in a definite ～い (doesn't include "Ri", or "Ki" etc.) I have no idea. This is just from what I've seen. So... please not that the above has NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever. You draw you own conclusions from what you know.

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by WoHenNi

No, I'd wager you're correct. I'm still learning Japanese and I'm nowhere near perfect.

I was just explaining what my Japanese Sensei explained to me and the way I understood it. But... you've open up a discussion so I've done a bit of research. ^^

From what I could find... there are ～いand ～な adjectives... as well as quasi-adjectives. Quasi-adjectives appear to end in every other sound except "E" and I didn't find many that ended in a definite ～い (doesn't include "Ri", or "Ki" etc.) I have no idea. This is just from what I've seen. So... please not that the above has NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever. You draw you own conclusions from what you know.

As far as I know the only way to tell them apart with no doubt is looking at the kanji. In a な adjective, even if it finishes with a い when written with かな that い is part of the kanji's reading.
In a い adjective instead the final い is not part of the kanji itself. A little bit like it works for the verbs. That's why I said to the OP that in the beginning it will be hard to recognize them since he is still using ローマ字.

[WoHenNi]

Originally Posted by chryuop

As far as I know the only way to tell them apart with no doubt is looking at the kanji. In a な adjective, even if it finishes with a い when written with かな that い is part of the kanji's reading.
In a い adjective instead the final い is not part of the kanji itself. A little bit like it works for the verbs. That's why I said to the OP that in the beginning it will be hard to recognize them since he is still using ローマ字.

So... would it be fair to say that all ~い adjectives DEFINITELY end in い?

So basically... we need to know the kanji of an adjective to truly determine whether or not it's a な or い adjective.

The way I first explained the difference (I believe) is a good starting point for beginner Japanese learners that are learning adjectives. Because there are some な adjectives that end in い, and if there's an "E" sound behind the い, then it's a な adjective. It's a good way to easily distinguish SOME adjectives for people newer to the language. ^^

But... yeah. Good discussion. I learnt from it.

[Sashimister]

Weird. Having lived in Japan for half a century since birth, I have never, ever heard the terms "い-adjective" and "な-adjective" except on the internet. Never even heard anything even close to those to tell the truth.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Sashimister

Weird. Having lived in Japan for half a century since birth, I have never, ever heard the terms "い-adjective" and "な-adjective" except on the internet. Never even heard anything even close to those to tell the truth.

Yeah, you learn different things when you learn the language non-natively. For example, there is a difference between the usage and meaning of "that" and "which" that I didn't learn until law school!

Yeah, you learn different things when you learn the language non-natively. For example, there is a difference between the usage and meaning of "that" and "which," which I didn't learn until law school!

(the second carries the additional implication that there is only one difference, and that single difference was not learned by me until law school)

My fiancée, on the other hand, learned it when she was growing up learning English as a second language.

[WoHenNi]

I suppose it's a different perspective that makes the difference.

If you tried to teach non-native Japanese speakers in Australia the negative forms of adjectives without explaining or introducing the I/Na system, they would have NO clue whatsoever.

[chryuop]

I assume it is because you spoke Japanese since you were born. You got a different feeling towards the language, and by feeling I don't mean you like it while I don't like it. In you ears you can tell what feels/sounds right and what doesn't. A foreigner needs a different approach to the language coz we don't have those way of feeling it.
You give us a particle and tell us what it translate into and that is what it is to us. You hear a particle and you don't think what it translate into, but it creates a certain feeling inside of you that tells you what it is.
This is why when we learn grammar we need some sort of schemes that makes it easy for us to follow the right path.

Just try to think back my poor try of speaking in a more colloquial way, a total failure. We students don't have the same approach towards your language as a native speaker does. Trust me, I have lived in the USA for 10 years and still haven't fully developed the same "feeling" that a native speaker has for English. I don't think I will ever master English like I do with my language. Not because I know my language grammar better, but because I belong to that culture fully.