い-Adjectives Basics
い-Adjectives Basics
Describe nouns
If we want to describe nouns more closely, we use adjectives. There are two types of adjectives in Japanese: い-adjectives and na-adjectives.
い-adjectives are easy to recognize because they always end in the Hiragana character い. Surprising, I know.
To use い-adjectives, you simply attach them in front of the noun you want to describe.
富士山は高い山だ。
Mount Fuji is a tall mountain.
Besides appearing in front of the noun they modify, い-adjectives can also be used at the end of a sentence. It is important to note, however, that they cannot be followed by だ.
A common structure in such cases is AはB, where A is the subject being described, and B is the い-adjective.
この映画は面白いね。
This movie is interesting, isn't it?
Special Note
Be careful, however, as a few na-adjectives also end in い when written in Hiragana. The two most common ones are きれい beautiful and きらい dislike. If you remember these two, you should be fine.
We sometimes talk about the い-adjective stem. This refers to the part of the い-adjective that remains after removing the い. For example, the stem of うつくしい is うつくし.
Special Note
In Japanese, い-adjectives are called 形容詞.
Formation
うつくしい人