Friday, November 30, 2018

の Adjectives

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."

The Legendary Yamada Tae.
Anime: Zombieland Saga
  • Densetsu no Yamada Tae
    伝説山田たえ
    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:
Sunday, November 4, 2018

な Adjectives

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.