-gatai ～がたい, ～難い

In Japanese, -gatai ～がたい, also written -gatai ～難い, is an auxiliary adjective that means something "hard to do" because you aren't willing to do it, or it's "hard to happen" because you don't believe it normally happen.

(not to be confused with gattai 合体, which means "to combine.")

Manga: Made in Abyss, Meido in Abisu メイドインアビス

• Usage
• Conjugation
• ～難い
• Katai 難い
• ～がたい vs. ～にくい
• Resisting to Do It
• I'd Rather Not
• Psychological Verbs
• Probably Not Gonna Happen
• ～がたい vs. ～づらい
• Doshigatai 度し難い
• Further Reading

-dzurai ～づらい, ～辛い

In Japanese, -dzurai ～づらい, also written -dzurai ～辛い, pronounced the same way as zurai ずらい, and inputted in an IME as durai, is an auxiliary adjective that means a verb is "hard for you to do" because doing it causes you trouble or distress.

Manga: Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu. 古見さんは、コミュ症です。

• Usage
• Conjugation
• tsurai 辛い
• zurai ずらい
• ～づらい vs. ～にくい
• Antonym
• Further Reading

-nikui ～にくい, ～難い

In Japanese, -nikui ～にくい, also written -nikui ～難い, -nikui ～悪い, is an auxiliary adjective that means something is "hard to do." In essence, -nikui ～にくい is the antonym of the auxiliary adjective -yasui ～やすい, which means "easy to do."

Manga: Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san からかい上手の高木さん

• Usage
• Conjugation
• Homonyms
• Nikui 憎い
• Minikui 醜い vs. 見にくい
• -gatai ～難い
• "Hard" in Japanese
• "Hard" Difficulty
• "Hardware"
• "Hard," i.e. "Not Soft"
• Examples
• 息がしにくい
• Further Reading

-yasui ～やすい, 安い, 易い

In Japanese, -yasui ～やすい is an auxiliary adjective that means something is "easy" to do or to happen. It's also a normal i-adjective that means "easy," yasui 易い. When the word is written with a different kanji, yasui 安い, it means something is "cheap" or "calm."

• Auxiliary Adjective
• Usage
• Conjugation
• Easy to Do vs. Easy to Happen
• 易い
• Tayasui たやすい【容易い】
• 安い
• "Cheap"
• "Calm"
• 安らか、安らかな
• Antonyms
• "Easy" in Japanese
• Easy Game Difficulty
• Easy Woman
• Examples
• 分かりやすい
• 気安い
• Further Reading

-rashii ～らしい

In Japanese, -rashii ～らしい is an auxiliary adjective that has a couple of tricky meanings. Usually, rashii means "I heard that," or "it seems that," or "it's like that," or "-esque," depending on how it's used.

Manga: Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san からかい上手の高木さん

• Definition
• Rumors & Hearsay
• Omae-Rashii お前らしい
• Rashikunai らしくない
• Rashiku natta らしくなった
• Fitting The Role
• Acting The Role
• -esque
• -ish
• -ly
• 可愛らしい vs. 可愛いらしい
• Rashiku らしく Conjectures
• らしい vs. ようだ
• Further Reading

Relative Clauses in Japanese

Relative clauses, or adjective clauses, are, literally, clauses that work as adjectives to modify nouns. Now, that might sound a bit complicated and grammatical if the only clause you know is Santa, but it basically means that you can use verbs to describe things. For example:

• neko ga shaberu 猫が喋る
  The cat talks.
• shaberu 喋る
  To talk. (a verb.)
• shaberu neko 喋る猫
  The cat [that] talks
• ...that talks:
  A relative clause.

In the example above, we aren't talking about any one cat. We're talking about the cat that talks, the talking cat, specifically.

In Japanese, relative clauses are called rentai-shuushoku-setsu 連体修飾節, "prenominal modifying clause," since they're clauses that come before nouns to modify them.

• English Relative Pronouns
• That, Which, Who
• Whose
• Whom
• Relative Adverbs
• Wildcard Nouns
• Nomenclature
• Nominalizers
• Grammar
• Basic Usage
• With Verb in Non-Past Form
• With Verb in Past Form
• With Verb in Negative Form
• With Verb in Tai Form
• With Verb in Potential Form
• Ga が Becoming No の in Relative Clause
• In Na-Adjective Clauses
• Passive Form and Transitiveness
• 殺した人 vs. 殺された人
• 殺された人が殺した人を殺す
• 彼に殺された人
• 家族を殺された人
• With Verb in Causative Form
• Practically Causative Verbs
• Causative Ambiguities
• With Personal Pronouns
• Wa は in Relative Clauses
• dewanai ではない
• In Adverbial Clauses
• After the Relative Clause
• With Beki
• Nested Relative Clauses
• Cheat Sheet
• Examples
• Further Reading

-naide ～ないで

In Japanese, naide ないで is a phrase created from the auxiliary adjective nai ない plus the particle de で. It has a number of different functions, the most common one being to ask people not do something.

Anime: "Kemono Friends," Kemono Furenzu けものフレンズ

• tabenai-de kudasai! 食べないでください！
  Please don't eat me!
• — Kaban-Chan.

• Negative Request
• ないでください
• ないでくれ
• ないでくれる
• ないでもらえますか
• ないでほしい
• ないで vs. なくて
• Different Ways to Use
• Further Reading

No-Adjectives in Japanese

The term no-adjective refers to Japanese adjectives created by adding the no の particle after a noun. Generally speaking, "noun-no-noun" uses the first noun to describe the second noun somehow. This is also called the "genitive case."

Anime: Zombieland Saga

• Densetsu no Yamada Tae
  伝説の山田たえ
  The Legendary Yamada Tae.
• densetsu 伝説
  Legend.

The term "no-adjective" is mostly used when teaching Japanese to non-native speakers, because a noun marked by the genitive case-marking particle no の acts like an adjective.

There doesn't seem to be a Japanese equivalent for this term. Some books don't use the term at all. Furthermore, no-adjectives can be used in a hundred different ways, so it'd be very difficult to explain what is a no-adjective exactly, and perhaps even a futile effort.

Anyways:

• Genitive Case
• Ambiguity of No-Adjectives
• Noun Compounds
• Kanji Compounds
• Examples of Usage
• Chart
• Possessive Case
• Possessive Personal Pronouns
• Places and Residency
• Usage With Numbers
• Partitive
• No Hitotsu のひとつ
• No Hitotsu ya Futatsu のひとつやふたつ
• No Hitori の一人
• Members of Groups
• No Between Family Name and Given Name
• Omission in Names
• Aspect and Categorization
• Material and Composition
• Region and Origin
• Colors
• Direct Attributes
• Superlatives
• Apposition
• Directions
• Densetsu no Ki no Shita 伝説のキノシタ
• Verbs Involved in Genitives
• Agent of Action
• Verb as No-Adjective
• Patient of Action
• Ambiguity of Verb Nouns
• Genitives and Transitivity
• Usage With Particles
• の Instead of が in Relative Clauses
• が Instead of の as Possessive Marker
• での, からの, までの, への
• Suffixes
• -Tame no ～ための
• -You no ～用の
• Expressions
• Attributive Copula No の
• Further Reading

Na-Adjectives in Japanese, ～な, ナ形容詞

In Japanese, na-adjectives are words that are usually turned into attributive adjectives by adding a na な after them. Some na-adjectives are always classified as adjectives, but others can be classified as nouns or adverbs when they don't have the na.

The term for "na-adjective" in Japanese is na-keyoushi ナ形容詞, abbreviated na-kei ナ形. They're also confusingly called "adjectival nouns" in English and "adjectival verbs" in Japanese, keiyou-doushi 形容動詞, abbreviated keidou 形動.

• Relationship with Copulas
• Conjugation
• Chart
• Grammar
• Attributive Form
• Predicative Form
• Attributive Copula Na な
• What We Can't Turn Into a Na-Adjective?
• Negative Form
• でない vs. ではない
• Negative Past, etc.
• Past Form
• Te-Form
• Adverbial Form
• Adverbial Copula Ni に
• Ni Naru になる
• Suffixes That Are Na-Adjectives
• You da, You na, You ni
• Sou da, Sou na, Sou ni
• Teki da, Teki na, Teki ni
• Origins

ほしい vs. たい

A question people often have about hoshi 欲しい, or rather, hoshii ほしい, an auxiliary adjective that means "want" in Japanese, is: what's the difference between hoshii and tai たい, another auxiliary which also means "want" in Japanese?

• Difference in Usage
• Moraitai もらいたい
• Conjugation

-hoshii ～ほしい, 欲しい

The word hoshii 欲しい is a weird Japanese word. If you check a dictionary, you'll see in Japanese hoshii means "wanted." But that doesn't make much sense, does it? To want is a verb, hoshii is an i-adjective. So how does that work? What's the real meaning of hoshii?

• Definition
• Inflections
• Auxiliary Adjective
• Causative, Passive, Hoshii ほしい
• 欲しい vs. ほしい
• 欲しがる
• 欲する
• Further Reading

Tai-form ～たい

In Japanese, the "tai-form" happens when you add the -tai ～たい auxiliary adjective to the ren'youkei 連用形 conjugation of a verb, causing it to change to the desiderative mood. In other words, -tai means "want to" in Japanese, and verb-tai means "want to verb."

(beware of homonyms: tai 体, morpheme for "body," and tai 対, "versus." Those are also tai but not what this article is about.)

Manga: Boku no Hero Academia 僕のヒーローアカデミア

• Conjugation
• Suffixing to Verbs
• Causative Passive Tai-Form
• Chart
• -Tee ～てぇ
• -Tee ～てー
• More Examples
• やりたいこと
• しにたい
• 喜ぶ顔が見たい
• 触りたい…モテたい…
• 知りたくない
• を笑わせたい
• Further Reading

i-Adjectives in Japanese, ～い, イ形容詞

An i-adjective is a type of Japanese adjective with a base form ending in -i ~い, like hayai 速い, "fast," kawaii 可愛い, "cute," tanoshii 楽しい, "fun," and so on.

In Japanese, such words are called keiyoushi 形容詞, "adjectives," or, more specifically, i-keiyoushi イ形容詞, abbreviated i-kei イ形.

The i-adjectives are different from other Japanese adjectives by the fact they're true adjectives: the word is an adjective as-is, it isn't a noun or adverb that needs a particle in order to be used as an adjective. (which is the case with na-adjectives and no-adjectives.)

• Conjugation
• Japanese Terms for Inflections
• 連体形 vs. 終止形
• Forms and Suffixes
• Stem
• Chart
• i-Adjectives vs. Words Ending With -i ～い
• Grammar
• Attributive Form, -i ～い
• Predicative Form, -i ～い
• Using the Copula
• -i-n-da ～いんだ
• -katta desu ～かったです
• Adverbial Form, -ku ～く
• Adjectives Modifying Adjectives
• -ku naru ～くなる
• -ku natta ～くなった
• Te-form, -kute ～くて
• Te-Form & Color Adjectives
• Ooi 多い vs. Ooku no 多くの
• Sa-form, -sa ～さ
• Suffix: -sugiru ～すぎる
• Suffix: -sou ～そう
• Ba-form, -kereba ～ければ
• Tara-form, -kattara ～かったら
• Tari-form, -kattari ～かったり
• Volitional form, -karou ～かろう
• 〇〇ろうが〇〇ろうが
• Imperative form, -kare ～かれ
• 〇〇かれ〇〇かれ
• Auxiliary Adjectives
• Nakunakunai なくなくない
• Variation in Pronunciation
• Arigatou, Omedetou, Ohayou
• Yoroshuu よろしゅう
• Further Reading
• List of i-adjectives

Swearing with Kono この

In anime, sometimes you have a character swearing in Japanese saying something like kono...! something. Like kono yarou!, kono baka yarou!, kono baka!, kono aho! Well. Anyway, it starts with kono この, which means "this," but it often gets translated as "you." In this post I'll explain why.

Manga: Zatch Bell! / Konjiki no Gasshu!! 金色のガッシュ!!

• How It Works
• Thinking vs. Saying
• Examples
• Ko...no... こ…の…
• Kono Onna この女
• Kono Yarou この野郎
• Kono Something Yarou この〇〇野郎
• Kono Yaku Tatazu この役立たず
• More Examples

Yarou 野郎

The word yarou 野郎 (or yarō, also spelled やろう, ヤロー, ヤロウ), is a rather weird word. By itself, it can be a casual or rather rude way to say "guy." Originally, it referred to an adult man. But the way you see it used most often in anime is in insults and swearing.

So, in this post, I'll explain the why of all this.

(beware of homonyms: yarou やろう may also be "let's do it," the volitional form of the verb yaru やる, "to do;" and yarou ヤロウ may refer to the plant, "Yarrow," achillea millefolium.)

Manga: Black Lagoon ブラック・ラグーン

• Written in Japanese
• Kanji
• Yarō
• Usage
• Swearing
• Examples
• Baka Yarou バカ野郎
• Kono Aho Yarou このアホ野郎
• Inpo Yarou インポ野郎
• Maguso Yarou 馬糞野郎
• More Examples
• Name + No Yarou 〇〇の野郎
• Female Yarou
• Ama アマ
• Yarou-domo 野郎共
• Other Meanings
• Related History
• Origin