User:Elaeum/Testbed/Japanese/Retropunk/Lesson3

Lesson 3 (第三課): Looking for someone

Grammar (文法):

Adjectives

So far, we have learned how to equate to nouns together, for instance This is England (ここは　イギリスです。), or Sue is a teacher (スーさんは　せんせいです。) Adjectives can be used very similarly to describe a noun. Adjectives may either describe a noun, or be paired with the copula to form a statement. They conjugate (or change suffixes) depending on if they are being used to describe something in the past or non-past (present and future), and also if they are being used to affirm or deny. There are two different types of adjectives, each which conjugate slightly differently.

I (い)-adjectives:

The following is a conjugation table for the い-adjective あたらしい. To conjugate other い-adjectives, drop the final い, and substitute the remaining part with the non-bold portion of the appropriate cell in the table below.

い-adjective conjugation table

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	あたらしい	あたらしくありません
Past	あたらしかったです	あたらしくありませんでした

For example, to conjugate いそがしい to the past negative, drop the final い, which leaves いそがし, and replace with the non bold portion of the past-negative cell resulting in the following: いそがしくありませんでした.

Using い-adjectives

い-adjectives may either modify a noun or be used in a statement.

Na (な)-adjectives:

The following is a conjugation table for the い-adjective きらい(な). To conjugate other な-adjectives, do not use the final な, and substitute the remaining part with the non-bold portion of the appropriate cell in the table below.

な-adjective conjugation table

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	げんきです	げんきじゃありませんです
Past	げんきでした	げんきじゃありませんでした

よ ／ ね

よ and ね may be appended to the end of a sentence to accent that sentence.

When よ is appended to the end of a sentence, it gives the sentence an air of certainty. よ appended to the end of a sentence gives the sentence the connotation that "I am exclaiming this because it is fact!" Sentences which have statements of questionable validity or doubt should not have よ appended to them.

Conversely, appending ね to the end of a sentence conveys doubt or uncertainty. Appending ね implicitly asks for the listener's agreement. An English analogy would be appending the word "huh?" at the end of a sentence. An example sentence would be "Wow, your cat is fat, huh?"

Neither よ nor ね should be appended to sentences in written Japanese. These are spoken constructs only, in the same way that an English speaker would never spell out the word "huh?" in a written paper.

Order of Parts of Speech

As stated before, Japanese is very flexible with regards to word ordering. There are only two set rules that should be followed when constructing sentences. The topic of the sentence should always come first, and the copula or verb must come last in a sentence. Verbs will be taught in lesson 5.