Adjectives: Conjugations and other little bits and bobs.

Conjugation


Adjectives behave very similar to verbs, you could say:

I have a red chair; or, I have a chair that is red. You can boil them down to: red chair and chair is red. These two ways of descirbing something is also present in Japanese, bu conjugation.

Before a noun


Sooo easy, just add the adjective before the noun:

Big cat --> 大きい猫 (おおきい　ねこ)

 After a noun


This is where things get a little complicated. In Japanese, there are two (arguably three) types of adjectives;

• ~ い adjectives, they are proper (true) adjectives.
• ~ な adjectives, they derive from nouns, such as 危険な "is dangerous."
• ~の; they're not really adjectives, but that particle can be used for a noun to describe a noun without the meaning of is, such as eternal darkness 永遠の闇 (eien no yami) which is different from 闇を永遠な (eien o eien na) the darkness is eternal. It doesn't really constitute as a whole group of adjectives, but its worth knowing the difference between the all three.

The complication is that the adjectives get conjugated, as shown below:

~い Adjectives
Non-Past:　い
Past:　かった
Negative Non-Past:　くない
Negative Past:　くなかった


~な Adjectives

Non-Past:　だ

Past:　だった

Negative Non-Past:　でわない

Negative Past:　でわなっかた

Polite 

~い Adjectives

Non-Past:　いです

Past:　かったです

Negative Non-Past:　くありません

Negative Past:　くありませんでした

~な Adjectives

Non-Past:　です

Past:　でした

Negative Non-Past:　でわありません

Negative Past:　でわありませんでした

_____

Adverbs

To make an adjective an adverb (like the ~ly in english, sudden --> suddenly):

い --> く

な --> に

Difficult --> Difficultly

難しい -->難しく

Quiet --> Quietly

静かな --> 静かに

_____

Linking Sentences

In Japanese, verbs and adjectives are linked by conjugation (verbs use the ~て form, which we'll come onto later). Adjectives follow the simple procedure as shown below:

い --> くて

な --> で