Types of Adjectives in Japanese

Meet types of adjectives in japanese and learn more!

Before starting to talk about the Japanese adjectives themselves, let's see a general description of the types of adjectives found in the Japanese language.

Hover the mouse cursor over Japanese symbols (kanjis) to see the pronunciation and translation.

Types of Adjectives in Japanese

As everyone already knows, Japanese adjectives are words that attribute a quality or characteristic to nouns. At japanese grammar Adjectives are divided into two types: adjectives ending in い and adjectives ending in な.

Japanese adjectives i

the adjectives い have this name because they always end with the vowel い, with few exceptions. In this way, Japanese grammar ensures that if you come across a word ending in い before a noun, this word will certainly be an adjective in Japanese.

One good thing about Japanese adjectives is that they are used similarly to English adjectives. That is, adjectives usually appear before the noun. At this point, Japanese grammar is very similar to English. Shall we see some examples?

青い車

高い木

古い家

Japanese adjectives in

In Japanese grammar, adjectives do not have this name because they usually end with the syllable. な. In some cases, we may omit the syllable na of these Japanese adjectives, but in their common usage, the syllable な always appears.

A basic difference we find between adjectives い and the adjectives な, in addition to the syllable used in the termination, is that adjectives な do not flex. That is, in Japanese grammar, adjectives な maintains its form in the various tenses. Shall we see some examples?

有名な女

大切な人

好きな日本語

concluding

I know that Japanese adjectives can be used in different ways than we mentioned here, but today's article is just an introduction. From the next articles, we will talk about each group of Japanese adjectives separately, showing their uses and constructions according to Japanese grammar.

Kanji calligraphy exercise

Below are the Japanese ideographic symbols used in this article. Selecting the desired kanji, copy and paste them into Worksheet for Kana and Kanji Practice , a new window will open where you can view the printable file and practice Japanese calligraphy by covering the gray symbols and then trying to write yourself. Just print and practice.