Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 1: 11/12

な-AdjectiveAdjectives that are also nouns

Some な-Adjectives can end in い

Structure

［な］Adjective + だ
［な］Adjective + な + Noun

Details

  • Noun

  • Adjectival Noun

  • Standard

About な-Adjectives

In Japanese, the vast majority of な-Adjectives are originally nouns, and differ from nouns only in that they have their own set of conjugation rules. The dictionary form of a な-Adjective will always be followed by だ. な is only attached when describing another noun.

As we can see from these examples, だ or です is required at the end of a sentence, but な will be required when using a な-Adjective to describe a noun.

な-Adjectives are mostly words of foreign (Chinese/English) origin. This is why they have evolved to require unique conjugation rules.

Fun Fact

As a learner, it can be very difficult to identify what a な-Adjective is, compared to a regular noun. Nouns conjugate with の, while な-Adjectives conjugate with な. A very simple trick that Japanese children learn is using the adverb とても 'very'. If とても sounds natural with a word, then it is probably a な-Adjective, if it sounds unnatural, then the word is likely to be a regular noun.

From this example, we can see that とても can be used to help identify な-Adjectives. Basically, this is due to adjectives being measurable 'very big', 'very small', while nouns are not measurable 'very dog', 'very boat'.

Related

Misc.

Vocab Coverage

All Bunpro Vocab that appears on this item.

Examples

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  • 綺麗(きれい)な絵(え)。

    A pretty painting.

  • 綺麗(きれい)な女(おんな)の人(ひと)。

    A pretty woman.

  • 暇(ひま)な一日(いちにち)。

    A free day.

  • 静(しず)かな部屋(へや)。

    A quiet room.

  • あれは綺麗(きれい)です。

    That over there is beautiful.

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な-Adjectives – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (13 in total)

  • gyroninja

    gyroninja

    If you read his posts you can see he used words like “left off” and “omit.” And in the way he compares な adjectives to い adjectives, he makes me think that he believed that な adjectives have a な at the end of them.

    As mentioned earlier in the thread if you want to use a な adjective on a verb you need to use に after the な adjective instead of な.

  • Leam_Atrum

    Leam_Atrum

    I think it’s very confusing for French.
    My 2 cents to change the french illustrations so that it’s clearer.

    Adjectif : “adorable” = 大好き

    魚は大好きだ > Les poissons sont adorables > on ajoute la particule da (être) à la fin
    大好きな魚です > C’est un poisson adorable > on ajoute na tout de suite après l’adjectif, et on conjugue normalement avec desu.

  • gpressutto5

    gpressutto5

    When doing bunpro reviews, how do I know if I should add い or な to a word? I always get them wrong and get this message:

    This is an な-Adjective, so will not be followed by い.

    I read people saying い adjectives always end in い, but that didn’t really work for reviews. When I got this い adjective question, for example:

    それは、_____。(高～)
    A type of word which has a similar conjugation pattern to verbs.

    How am I supposed to know if the correct answer is 高い instead of 高な?

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