The Japanese Adjective Shuffle

July 4, 2007 on 12:42 am | In Language | | Email This Post

Some 「い」adjectives can also be 「な」adjectives.

In fact three of them can.

「大きい」、「小さい」、and 「おかしい」can become…

「大きな」、「小さな」、and 「おかしな」respectively.

Apparently, these are the only 「い」adjectives you can do this to.

When the form is changed in this way, the meaning is not effected at all.

I have heard from one teacher, that using the 「な」form of these adjectives can make the speaker (or writer) sound a bit more formal than if the 「い」form were used. Generally though, if you are trying to sound “formal” in Japanese more complex adjectives should be used in place of these anyway…

以上！

- Harvey

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6 Comments »

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  1. Gravatar

    おもしろない

    Comment by Adam — July 4, 2007 #

  2. Gravatar

    What do you mean by more complex particles?

    Comment by Tres — July 4, 2007 #

  3. Gravatar

    I’ve also been interested in these adjectives. I’ve heard that using the -な form emphasizes the adjective more than the usual -い form does, but I can’t say I’m sure that’s true or not.
    Taeko Kamiya’s _Handbook of Japanese Adjectives & Adverbs_ says that 大きい, 小さい and おかしい are exceptional forms that can be used as -な adjectives “when modifying certain nouns,” but doesn’t give any further explanation about what kinds of nouns.
    I’m sort of inclined to believe that as you say, there isn’t any real difference in meaning between the -い and -な versions, but that for native Japanese speakers, certain nouns seem to naturally fit with the -な version for some reason. But I’m just talking out of my ass on this.

    Comment by bingobangoboy — July 4, 2007 #

  4. Gravatar

    This article (in Japanese) about 「大きい」 and 「大きな」 might be helpful to some.

    Comment by Michael — July 5, 2007 #

  5. Gravatar

    Note regarding above link: if your browser doesn’t display the page correctly, you may need to explicitly set the encoding to shift-JIS.

    Comment by Michael — July 5, 2007 #

  6. Gravatar

    Tres, by more complex adjectives I mean like… instead of 大きい、 use 巨大な、or instead of 強い use 強固な or 頑丈 or whatever it is you’re trying to say. Instead of 難しい say 困難。 Stuff like that.

    Comment by harvey — July 6, 2007 #

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