Lesson#8 – Emotional Adjectives

Did you really think that we were done studying japanese adjectives?!?!?
Well, you were wrong 😀

Japanese adjectives can be classified depending on their semantic content: -Adjectives that express qualities
-Adjectives that express emotions, feelings and mood

The second ones are used in a particular way in japanese.

In fact, when used in their B4 predicative form they imply that it’s the person who talks the one who is feeling that emotion.

Kanji of the year

Every year in Japan, they vote the kanji of the year (今年の漢字).
The kanji of 2014 was 税 (zei –>tax) and it was surely a kanji that was representing the 2014 for the whole world, not only Japan 😀

So what kanji won this year???

The kanji of 2015 is…. TAHDAH

安

Lesson#7 – Adjectives (Part 2)

In the first part we saw how to conjugate adjectives and how to use their B4 (attributive) B3 (predicative) and B2 (past and negative) conjugation.

In this lesson we go even further and we’ll see many other ways to use adjectives.

Other functions of the B2

Adverbial function

In this function, adjectives are changed into adverbs, what in english is usually -ly  (e.g. quickly).
For i-adj you just have to use the B2 without adding auxiliary:

kawaii (cute)—> kawai + ku (desinence) —> kawaiku (cutely)

Watashi wa kawaiku utau
I sing cutely (utau–>to sing)

For na-adj you use the b2 with desinence “ni”, always without auxiliary.

kantanna (easy)—> kantan + ni (desinence) —> kantan ni (easily)

watashi wa kantan ni katta
I won easily (katta–>won)

Lesson#6 – Adjectives (Part 1)

In japanese Language there are 2 big families of adjectives:
I-Adjectives (i-Adj from now on)
Na-Adjectives (na-Adj from now on)

They are called like that cause they respectively ends with “i” and “na” in their attributive form. (You didn’t expect it, right? 😀 )

Some examples of I-Adj:

atarashii 新しい new
furui 古い old
atsui 暑い hot
samui 寒い cold
oishii おいしい delicious
mazui まずい bad tasting
ookii 大きい big
chiisai 小さい small
osoi 遅い late, slow
hayai 早い early, quick
omoshiroi 面白い interesting, funny
tsumaranai つまらない boring
muzukashii 難しい difficult
yasashii 優しい easy
ii いい good
warui 悪い bad
takai 高い tall, expensive
yasui 安い cheap

Lesson#5 Verbs of possession

We already talked about verbs that are usually translated with “to be”. Now let’s have a look at the verbs that can be translated with “to have” to express possession.

Aru/Iru

Oh yes! Them again
They aren’t only used to express the existence but also to express possession!
How can you understand which meaning has aru in a sentence?
Well, simple! the structure used when you want to express possession is different.

When they are used to express existence, there is only one element of the sentence marked with “wa” or “ga” and this element is the “thing” that “exists”

Lesson#4 – Numbers

Since in the examples in the previous lesson there were numbers… let’s take the chance to study them 🙂

kanji – arab number – romaji

零/◯ 0 zero, rei
一 1 ichi
二 2 ni
三 3 san
四 4 yon / shi
五 5 go
六 6 roku
七 7 shichi / nana
八 8 hachi
九 9 kyuu
十 10 juu

Lesson#3 Iru-Aru

Iru and Aru are the verbs used to express the existence of something. So they mean “to be (in a certain place)” “to exist” or simply “there is”
Iru is used for persons and animals while Aru is for all the rest.
Those 2 verbs are used in many others constructs as auxiliary verbs but it’s not the moment to study it.
As usual, they have a polite form: imasu and arimasu

So a pair of examples:

庭には猫がいる
niwa ni wa neko ga iru
There is a cat in the garden (庭–>niwa–>garden 猫–>neko–>cat)

ペンは机の上にあります
pen wa tsukue no ue ni arimasu
The pen is on the desk (ペン–>pen 机–>tsukue–>desk “no ue ni”–>on )

Lesson#2 – desu

I was planning to explain all the japanese verbs who can be translated as “to be” in a single lesson, but it would be way too long 😀
So in this lesson I will talk only about “desu”.

desu – da
Japanese verbs always have 2 forms: a formal one and an informal one used with friends and family only.
“desu” is the polite form of “da” and it’s often considered the japanese version of “To be” but it’s actually not. Usually desu just works as auxiliary verb to express courtesy. Anyway, it’s not easy to explain cause there is nothing similar in english.
We will focus, for the moment, on the only way “desu” is used as “to be” verb.

Let’s break the ice! Lesson#1!

To break the ice, I decided to start with something super basic! Even without having studied japanese, many people probably already know this. But it’s just the beginning, don’t worry 🙂

Sentence Structure and Personal Pronouns

Let’s say that there is only one strict rule about japanese sentences: the verb must be put at the end of the sentence. The other elements can be used in various orders and they are omitted when possible. The shorter the sentence.. the better!
Ok, let’s say that it’s not totally random, but since there are not strict rules.. you’ll get it with experience