Page 95 - Easy Japanese - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly! (TUTTLE)

GRAMMAR NOTE Adjective Predicates

All Japanese adjectives end in -i (Non Past) and -katta (Past). To make the
Negative form, change -i to -ku nai for Non-past and to -ku nakatta for Past. To

make it formal, add desu.

Yasui desu. It’s cheap.

Yasuku nai desu. It’s not cheap.
Yasukatta desu. It was cheap.
Yasuku nakatta desu. It was not cheap.

Noun and verb predicates were introduced in lessons 2 and 3. With the adjective
predicates introduced in this lesson you have now seen all three Japanese
sentence types. The chart on the next page shows all the basic predicate forms.

The adjective i’i is an exception and has special forms.

I’i desu. It’s good.
Yoku nai desu. It’s not good.

Yokatta desu. It was good.
Yoku nakatta desu. It wasn’t good.

Yokatta desu nē is a common response to good news. Yoku is one of the most