You don’t really hear negative adjectives all that often. People tend to say “That’s old”, not “That is not new”. The big exception is when you need to contradict or correct someone. If you get asked “Is that a new shirt?” it makes perfect sense to respond “No, it’s not new” (いいえ。あたらしくないです).

Vocabulary

難しい = むずかしい = difficult

Transcript

言語ガールズ #69

Why Would You Say That!?

Blue: Last time we talked about past tense adjectives.

Blue: So this time we’re going to talk about negative and past negative adjectives.

Blue: To make a negative い adjective you replace the い with くない.

Yellow: 新しくない

Blue: To make a past negative adjective you replace the い with くなかった.

Blue: It’s a mix between the past rule and the negative rule.

Yellow: 新しくなかった

Blue: Now we can say things like: 日本語は難しくないです

Yellow: I understand what you just said…

Yellow: But at the same time I don’t.

I guess you could have a language with zero conjugations, but you would have to have a ton of context in every sentence. You couldn’t just say “I went to the store”, you’d have to say “ I [go] to the store in the past”. Which would be just as much work as conjugating your verbs. So hooray for conjugation!

Transcript

言語ガールズ #68

Some Things Never Change

Blue: When conjugating “AはBです” patterns with い adjectives you change the adjective but leave the です alone.

Blue: For example: To make a past tense sentence you change the adjective’s い to かった.

Yellow: So 新しい would become 新しかった?

Blue: That’s right.

Yellow: And we don’t use でした even though we’re in the past tense?

Blue: Right. We stick with です.

Blue: “The smartphone was new” would be スマホは新しかったです

Yellow: Not conjugating です is nice, but having to conjugate the adjective is lame.

Blue: But if you didn’t conjugate anything how would people know what tense you’re using?

Of course you can also use “na adjectives” in casual “A ha B desu” patterns. But since we’re focusing on formal Japanese right now I’ll leave it up to you to find your own examples in your favorite Japanese media.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #67

Starting Off Too Easy

Blue: Adjectives that don’t end in い are sometimes called “na adjectives”.

Yellow: Because they need an extra な when placed before a noun.

Blue: Besides the な rule these adjectives don’t have any conjugations.

Blue: You can just plug them right into any form of “AはBです”.

Yellow: Past?

Blue: スマホは便利でした

Yellow: Negative?

Blue: スマホは便利ではありません

Yellow: Negative past?

Blue: スマホは便利ではありませんでした

Yellow: So our first lesson on adjective conjugation was all about adjectives that don’t need to be conjugated?

Blue: When you put it that way…

Some common adjectives actually come in both “i” and “non-i” flavors. For example, “small” can be written as both “chiisai” and “chiisa na”. In my limited experience the “i” versions are used more often than the “na” flavors, but it’s not like I’ve ever actually counted.

Vocabulary

新しい = あたらしい = new

便利 = べんり = convenient, useful

Transcript

言語ガールズ #66

Techno-Obsessive

Blue: Adjectives have different rules depending on whether they end in い or not.

Blue: And it has to be an い. Other “i” sounds like り or し don’t count!

Blue: い adjectives can be used in “AはBです”patterns or placed before a noun.

Yellow: スマホは新しいです。新しいスマホです。

Blue: Non-い adjectives can be used in an “AはBです”pattern but need an extra な when placed before a noun.

Yellow: スマホは便利です。便利なスマホです。

Yellow: That’s a lot of grammar just for talking about smart phones.

Blue: You can use adjectives to talk about other things too…

Yellow: But why would you want to?

The main purpose of conjugation is to add information to a sentence. For example, a past tense verb conjugation tells you that the whole sentence is about the past. A negative verb conjugation tells you that the sentence means the opposite of what it would without the conjugation.

But when you think about it, it doesn’t really matter how information gets into a sentence as long as it’s there in the end. And while a lot of languages do this with verb conjugation there are plenty of languages with non-verb strategies for telling the listener that sentence is in the past or negative or plural or whatever.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #65

Ego-Grammatical

Blue: I think we’ve spent enough time on conjugating verbs for now.

Yellow: I agree.

Blue: Let’s talk about conjugating adjectives instead.

Yellow: Wait, what?

Yellow: I thought you could only conjugate verbs…

Blue: That’s true in English.

Blue: But in 日本語 adjectives have past and negative forms too.

Blue: There’s no reason that ALL languages have to stick to conjugating JUST verbs.

Yellow: I can think of a reason: That’s how I’m used to doing things!

We’ve covered a lot of grammar by this point and you should be starting to get a good idea of whether Japanese is something you want to spend a lot of time seriously studying or if you’d rather just keep learning bits and pieces of it at a slow but relaxing pace.

If you are serious now might be the time to buy a real textbook to expand on and reinforce the lessons you’ve learned with Gengo Girls. I would personally suggest Japanese Step By Step by Gene Nishi. It’s a very logical textbook that manages to break down most of the Japanese language into a series of easy to follow flow charts.

And for those of you who don’t want to spend a lot of time with an actual textbook: There’s nothing wrong with studying Japanese as a casual hobby and I hope you’ll keep turning to Gengo Girls as a weekly source of Japanese language trivia.

Vocabulary

テレビ = television

Transcript

言語ガールズ #64

Good Advice

Blue: Why don’t we practice our casual past tense by writing down what we did yesterday after school?

Yellow: Good idea!

Blue: Here’s mine.

Blue’s note: 宿題をした。勉強した。本を読んだ。

Yellow: Turns out I didn’t really do much yesterday.

Yellow’s note: テレビを見た。

Blue: Your grades would probably be a lot higher if you applied yourself just a little more.

Yellow: You sound just like my mom!

As usual the irregular verbs are also super common verbs, which is a good thing because it means you’ll get lots of exposure. After hearing “shita”, “kita” and “itta” a hundred times each you won’t even have to think about conjugating them; the right word for the situation will just pop into your head.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #63

Overcompensation

Yellow: I’m ready for the irregular casual past tense verbs.

Blue: する becomes した

Blue: 来る (くる) becomes 来た (きた)

Blue: 行く (いく) becomes 行った (いった)

Yellow: That’s it?

Blue: That’s it.

Yellow: Then what are we supposed to do with the rest of today’s panels?

Blue: I’m sure you’ll think of something.

Yellow: So three men walk into a bar. One of them has a cat, one of them has a duck and one of them has a baked potato. The bartender turns to the first man and says…

Blue: We don’t have quite THAT much space.

That’s pretty much it for the casual past tense. As a polite foreigner you won’t be using this very often, but you will be hearing it all the time in tv shows, books, games and other people’s casual conversations. So it’s definitely important to learn.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #62

Everyone Needs A Nemesis

Blue: There’s only one casual past tense rule left.

Blue: If a verb ends in る or つ or う you change the last letter to った.

Yellow: Didn’t we already learn a る rule?

Blue: That was only for “iru” and “eru” verbs. This is for other る endings like “aru”.

Blue: And notice that った has a tiny つ, so it’s pronounced “tta” not “tsuta”.

Yellow: We meet again double consonants.

Yellow: Don’t think I’ll be defeated so easily this time!

Yellow: 分かる (わかる) becomes 分かった (わかった)!

Yellow: 頑張る (がんばる) becomes 頑張った (がんばった)!

Do people ever really outgrow gold stars? Sure, a teenager may not care whether or not his teacher puts a shiny sticker on his book report but I bet that same teenager cares quite a bit about earning athletic trophies. And full grown adults seem pretty interested in official certificates and fancy award plaques. Not to mention that militaries world wide hand out badges and pins for exceptional bravery and service.

In other words everybody likes being genuinely recognized for doing a good job no matter what their age and occupation may be.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #61

I Miss Kindergarten

Blue: Let’s keep talking about casual past tense verbs.

Yellow: I guess I can’t do much if only know half the past tense conjugations.

Blue: For verbs that end in す you change the す to した.

Yellow: 話す (はなす) to 話した (はなした).

Blue: If the verb ends in ぬ, む or ぶ you change the last syllable to んだ.

Yellow: 遊ぶ (あそぶ) to 遊んだ (あそんだ).

Yellow: I came up with two examples today. Give me a gold star!

Blue: Aren’t you getting a little old for reward stickers?

Yellow: Never!

く and ぐ are basically the same letter with just a little extra punctuation to distinguish “ku” from “gu”. It shouldn’t be surprising then that the casual past tenses for words ending in “ku” and “gu” are also almost the same: いた and いだ.

Vocabulary

泳ぐ = 泳ぐ = to swim

Transcript

言語ガールズ #60

Be Prepared

Blue: Verbs that don’t end in “iru” or “eru” have a casual past tense based on their last syllable.

Yellow: I’ll write that down.

Blue: If the verb ends in く you replace the く with いた.

Blue: 書く(かく) becomes 書いた (かいた）.

Yellow: ペンはどこですか…

Blue: Similarly if the verb ends in ぐ you replace the ぐ with いだ.

Blue: 泳ぐ (およぐ) becomes 泳いだ (およいだ).

Yellow: There it is!

Yellow: I was having trouble finding my pen.

Yellow: Could you start over for? I didn’t hear anything you just said.