Become familiar with the negative form of い-Adjectives

That's Not So Bad


In this Topic, we're going to learn about the negative form of い-Adjectives. With this, we'll be able to say that something is ‘not’ delicious, ‘not’ amazing, or ‘not’ cute!

Grammar in this Topic

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  • い-Adjectives くない

    Not (Adjective)

  • The negative form of い-Adjectives in Japanese is created by using the conjunctive form of the adjective, followed by ない. Conjunctive form just means 'agglutinative', or 'conjunctive' in Japanese. For い-Adjectives, this conjunctive form is created by removing い, and replacing it with く.

    The ない used with い-Adjectives is considered to be a different word to the ない used with verbs. When used with い-Adjectives, ない itself is also an い-Adjective. This means that it follows the same rules as regular い-Adjectives. Due to ません (the polite negative form) being an auxiliary verb, it cannot be conjugated with い-Adjectives in the same way as verbs.

    As can be seen here, you must first add the verb ある, and then conjugate it into its negative form using the auxiliary verb ません. This is how the polite negative is created.

    Caution

    As with regular い-Adjectives, you cannot use after ない. です is acceptable to create a semi-polite form, but is best used in spoken language only.

    N5 Grammar

Details


Let's take a look at what we just learned, but this time on our conjugation chart.

Easy い-Adjectives

As い-Adjective conjugation is extremely regular, this one will be easy to remember. い becomes く, and then we add ない.

(ひろ)
    • ない+です

    • + …
    • + …

    • + …

    • + …

い-Adjective

形容詞

The Odd One Out

And let's not forget about our one い-Adjective exception, いい 'good'.

(よ)
    • ない+です

    • + …
    • + …

    • + …

    • + …

い-Adjective

形容詞

Although you may also be wondering about な-Adjectives, seeing as they behave differently (like nouns!), we'll handle them in Chapter 6 along with the nouns.

A Letter to Mom


    --:--

    「お(かあ)さん

    今日(きょう)は、(はじ)めて学校(がっこう)()きました。

    教室(きょうしつ)はとても(ひろ)いです。学校(がっこう)のみんなは(やさ)しいです。

    今日(きょう)学校(がっこう)野球(やきゅう)をしました。

    (ぼく)野球(やきゅう)をするのが()きです。

    野球(やきゅう)授業(じゅぎょう)でゲームをしました。

    (ぼく)のチームが()ちました!

    コンピューターの授業(じゅぎょう)つまらないです。

    先生(せんせい)面白(おもしろ)くないです。

    今日(きょう)学校(がっこう)のトイレで(くろ)くないうんこをしました。

    それは(うれ)しくないです。

    明日(あした)はお(とう)さんに手紙(てがみ)()きます。

    たくま。」