Learn about possessive no and -na adjective ending change with -desu form
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Jessi: Where Can You Go in Japan That Leaves You Feeling More Beautiful Inside and Out? |
| Peter: Peter here. |
| Naomi: ナオミです。(Naomi desu.) |
| Peter: Naomi-sensei, we are back and last week, we covered |
| Naomi: い (i) ending adjectives. |
| Peter: And this week, we are going to cover |
| Naomi: な (na) ending adjectives. |
| Peter: And we kind of touched on this a bit last week. Now na-adjectives get their name from the fact when they are placed in front of a noun, they need to be followed by な (na). So it winds up like this. Adjective |
| Naomi: な (na) |
| Peter: Noun. So this is where they get their names from. So we are going to go into this in great detail in the latter part of the section, the grammar section. For now, today’s conversation takes place where? |
| Naomi: スタイルユーのヘアサロン。(Sutairu Yū no hea saron.) |
| Peter: At the hair salon. Conversation is polite Japanese. |
| Naomi: Fuyuka and Shu are coworkers. They are speaking polite Japanese. |
| Peter: All right. So with that said, let’s get into today’s lesson. |
| DIALOGUE |
| （チョキチョキ チョキチョキ）(chokichoki chokichoki) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : 静かですね。(Shizuka desu ne.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : ここは、いつも静かですか。(Koko wa, itsumo shizuka desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : 静かじゃないです。今日は特別です。冬果さんの髪はまっすぐですね。とてもきれいです。(Shizuka ja nai desu. Kyō wa tokubetsu desu. Fuyuka-san no kami wa massugu desu ne. Totemo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : そうですか。髪だけですか。(Sō desu ka. Kami dake desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : え、いやいや。もちろん、冬果さんもきれいです。(E, iya iya. Mochiron, Fuyuka-san mo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : どうも。(Dōmo.) |
| もう一度お願いします。今度はゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do onegai shimasu. Kondo wa yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : 静かですね。(Shizuka desu ne.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : ここは、いつも静かですか。(Koko wa, itsumo shizuka desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : 静かじゃないです。今日は特別です。冬果さんの髪はまっすぐですね。とてもきれいです。(Shizuka ja nai desu. Kyō wa tokubetsu desu. Fuyuka-san no kami wa massugu desu ne. Totemo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : そうですか。髪だけですか。(Sō desu ka. Kami dake desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : え、いやいや。もちろん、冬果さんもきれいです。(E, iya iya. Mochiron, Fuyuka-san mo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : どうも。(Dōmo.) |
| 今度は、英語が入ります。(Kondo wa, Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| （チョキチョキ チョキチョキ）(chokichoki chokichoki) |
| (snip-snap snip-snap) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : 静かですね。(Shizuka desu ne.) |
| FUYUKA KITAGAWA: It's very quiet. |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| SHŪ NISHIMOTO: It is. |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : ここは、いつも静かですか。(Koko wa, itsumo shizuka desu ka.) |
| FUYUKA KITAGAWA: Is it always quiet here? |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : 静かじゃないです。今日は特別です。冬果さんの髪はまっすぐですね。とてもきれいです。(Shizuka ja nai desu. Kyō wa tokubetsu desu. Fuyuka-san no kami wa massugu desu ne. Totemo kirei desu.) |
| SHŪ NISHIMOTO: Never quiet. Today is special. You have straight hair, Fuyuka. Your hair is very beautiful. |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : そうですか。髪だけですか。(Sō desu ka. Kami dake desu ka.) |
| FUYUKA KITAGAWA: Is that so? You meant my hair only? |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : え、いやいや。もちろん、冬果さんもきれいです。(E, iya iya. Mochiron, Fuyuka-san mo kirei desu.) |
| SHŪ NISHIMOTO: Huh? Oh, no! Of course, you are also beautiful, Fuyuka. |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : どうも。(Dōmo.) |
| FUYUKA KITAGAWA: Thanks. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Naomi-sensei, what did you think of today’s lesson? |
| Naomi: いい言葉とフレーズがありますね。(Ii kotoba to furēzu ga arimasu ne.) There are a lot of good phrases and words. |
| Peter: Definitely and we are going to take a closer look at some of them right now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Peter: So first we have |
| Naomi: 静か (shizuka) |
| Peter: Quiet, peaceful. |
| Naomi: (slow) しずか (shizuka) (natural speed) 静か (shizuka) |
| Peter: So this one, what’s going on here with the pitch accent? |
| Naomi: The pitch goes down, しずか (shizuka). |
| Peter: 静か (shizuka) |
| Naomi: そうです。(Sō desu.) |
| Peter: So it starts high and then down low. |
| Naomi: はい、そうです。(Hai, sō desu.) |
| Peter: 静か (shizuka) |
| Naomi: There is a gold medalist called Shizuka Arakawa. |
| Peter: The figure skater. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: Of course everybody knows her. |
| Naomi: The meaning of her name is quiet fragrance. |
| Peter: Ah interesting combination of Chinese characters there. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: Next we have |
| Naomi: いつも (itsumo) |
| Peter: Always. |
| Naomi: (slow) いつも (itsumo) (natural speed) いつも (itsumo) |
| Peter: Again high to low. |
| Naomi: はい、そうです。(Hai, sō desu.) |
| Peter: Starting out high on the い (i) and then down low. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: いつも (itsumo) |
| Naomi: そうです。(Sō desu.) |
| Peter: Followed by |
| Naomi: 特別 (tokubetsu) |
| Peter: Special. |
| Naomi: (slow) とくべつ (tokubetsu) (natural speed) 特別 (tokubetsu) |
| Peter: Now I am really starting to get the hang of it because you just – I know you started out low there and went high on the second syllable and stayed high. |
| Naomi: はい、そうです。(Hai, sō desu.) |
| Peter: 特別 (tokubetsu), now this is a na-adjective. 静か (shizuka) is also a na-adjective. |
| Naomi: そうです。(Sō desu.) |
| Peter: Next we have |
| Naomi: 髪 (kami) |
| Peter: Hair. |
| Naomi: (slow) 髪 (kami) (natural speed) かみ (kami) |
| Peter: Going up, 髪 (kami). |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) かみ (kami) has common names which means paper. |
| Peter: Ah is paper the same or… |
| Naomi: はい、同じです。(Hai, onaji desu.) Same. |
| Peter: Going up. |
| Naomi: はい、髪、紙。(Hai, kami, kami.) |
| Peter: Ah so you have to kind of gauge which one they are talking about by the context of the sentence. |
| Naomi: その通りです。そうです。(Sono tōri desu. Sō desu.) So paper hair which sounds a bit strange, but paper hair is 紙の髪 (kami no kami). |
| Peter: 紙の髪 (kami no kami) |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: Interesting. Okay, next we have |
| Naomi: まっすぐ (massugu) |
| Peter: Straight. |
| Naomi: (slow) まっすぐ (massugu) (natural speed) まっすぐ (massugu) |
| Peter: Next we have |
| Naomi: きれい (kirei) |
| Peter: Beautiful. |
| Naomi: (slow) きれい (kirei) (natural speed) きれい (kirei) |
| Peter: Now this is an adjective that ends in い(i) but… |
| Naomi: But it’s actually な (na) ending adjective. |
| Peter: Yeah, it’s actually a na-adjective. So this is one you are just going to have to remember. |
| Naomi: If you are going to say beautiful pen, きれいなペン (kirei na pen). |
| Peter: What a beautiful pen! Now here is a way that should help you to remember it. Before we are going over the i-adjectives, all of the i-adjectives, the last syllable is a hiragana い (i) but with this word きれい (kirei), it’s actually two kanji characters. |
| Naomi: Ah… |
| Peter: That final い (i) is not dangling or it belongs to a kanji character. So in that sense, it’s not an i-adjective. |
| Naomi: すごい。(Sugoi.) |
| Peter: And that’s why we follow it with な (na) when it’s placed in front of nouns therefore making it a na-adjective. |
| Naomi: なるほど。(Naruhodo.) |
| Peter: Now some people out there might be saying you know, I still don’t really get this na-adjective. Well hang on just a bit longer because we are going to go into detail when we go through this conversation. So just a bit longer and what about pitch accent for this word? |
| Naomi: (slow) きれい (kirei) (natural speed) きれい (kirei) |
| Peter: Starts high and going down, きれい (kirei). |
| Naomi: そうです。(Sō desu.) |
| Peter: Next we have |
| Naomi: だけ (dake) |
| Peter: Only. |
| Naomi: (slow) だけ (dake) (natural speed) だけ (dake) |
| Peter: This is followed by |
| Naomi: もちろん (mochiron) |
| Peter: Of course. |
| Naomi: (slow) もちろん (mochiron) (natural speed) もちろん (mochiron) |
| Peter: Now even though this is a newbie lesson, I am just fascinated by this word. I believe this word comes from China. |
| Naomi: はー、そうですか。(Hā, sō desu ka.) |
| Peter: As they will – actually many words…. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: In Japanese come from China. Now the kanji for もちろん (mochiron) is not written very often. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: But in papers or someone writing. Sometimes some people do use it. It’s kind of very high level word. So you know, if you are listening to this newbie lesson, you are going to learn kanji that you could find in the PDF that probably your fluent friends may not even know. Now the reason I am bringing this up is もちろん (mochiron) means of course but the kanji in this means that literally means no argument. So when you extrapolate, it means there is nothing to be said and therefore of course. So the kind of thinking behind this phrase is, it’s of course because there is nothing I can say. Hence もちろん (mochiron). |
| Naomi: なるほど。(Naruhodo.) |
| Peter: This is a really good one. |
| Naomi: すごい、そうですか。知らなかったです。(Sugoi, sō desu ka. Shiranakatta desu.) I didn’t know that, wow. |
| Peter: Come on. Now you are just being nice, Naomi-sensei. |
| Naomi: すごいすごい。(Sugoi sugoi.) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Peter: Okay, now what we are going to do is we are going to take a look at the dialogue. Okay, first we have |
| Naomi: 静かですね。(Shizuka desu ne.) |
| Peter: It’s quiet, isn’t it? Literally we have |
| Naomi: 静か (shizuka) |
| Peter: Quiet. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: Is. |
| Naomi: ね (ne) |
| Peter: Right. It’s quiet. Now with this one, we don’t need the topic because the speaker is speaking about a range that can be heard and so the other person is – can easily understand that they are talking about the noise or that he is referring to this place. Now I think this is the perfect time to introduce everybody and to clear up what a na-adjective is all about. Now notice how a na-adjective 静か (shizuka) is a na-adjective, but when it’s followed by です (desu), there is no な (na). So some people may be wondering, well I don’t really get it but as we said in the previous lesson and in the beginning of this lesson, the na-adjective, that な (na) appears when the na-adjective is placed in front of a noun. So let’s just try that. What word can we use, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: Classroom. |
| Peter: And how do we say that in Japanese? |
| Naomi: クラスルーム (kurasurūmu) |
| Peter: Or we could say |
| Naomi: 教室 (kyōshitsu) |
| Peter: Okay. Let’s choose 教室 (kyōshitsu). |
| Naomi: 本当？ちょっと難しくないですか。(Hontō? Chotto muzukashikunai desu ka.) It’s not difficult? Okay. |
| Peter: It’s right. |
| Naomi: Okay, 教室 (kyōshitsu) okay. |
| Peter: Okay. So we have classroom. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: Now let’s use the pattern we used last week that noun followed by は (wa) followed by an adjective followed by です (desu) and we are going to use classroom and quiet. So we get the sentence |
| Naomi: 教室は静かです。(Kyōshitsu wa shizuka desu.) |
| Peter: Literally classroom quiet is. The classroom is quiet. Again we have the na-adjective but there is no な (na). Now what we are going to do is we are going to take that na-adjective and put it in front of the noun. Now watch what happens. |
| Naomi: 静かな教室 (shizuka na kyōshitsu) |
| Peter: Quiet classroom. That’s where that な (na) appears. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) So 特別な人 (tokubetsu na hito) means |
| Peter: Special person and again we have the な (na) in there. |
| Naomi: And if you want to say Peter is special. ピーターさんは特別です。(Pītā-san wa tokubetsu desu.) |
| Peter: And if you want to say, Naomi-sensei is a special person, ナオミ先生は特別な人です (Naomi-sensei wa tokubetsu na hito desu). So Naomi-sensei is a special person. So that な (na) appears when the adjective precedes the noun and hence this is what all that talk about the na-adjective is. Okay, it’s not that bad. It all makes sense and again if you check out the PDF, it will bring it altogether. Next line we have |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: That’s right. So here it’s not acting as a tag question but it is kind of – well I would kind of sum it up like this but listeners doesn’t really have much to add at this point in the conversation but is willing to keep listening. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| Peter: It’s like hmm, そうですね (sō desu ne), it’s like well I don’t really have much to add to. It’s quiet here but… you can keep trying. So not a tag question but kind of showing the speaker’s limited interest. This is followed by |
| Naomi: ここはいつも静かですか。(Koko wa itsumo shizuka desu ka.) |
| Peter: Is it always quiet here. So the first part is |
| Naomi: ここ (koko) |
| Peter: Here. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Peter: Topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: いつも (itsumo) |
| Peter: Always. |
| Naomi: 静か (shizuka) |
| Peter: Quiet. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: Is. |
| Naomi: か (ka) |
| Peter: Question. Here always quiet is. Is it always quiet here? Now notice the order here. Topic established first ここは (koko wa), followed by |
| Naomi: いつも (itsumo) |
| Peter: Adverb of time, followed by |
| Naomi: 静か (shizuka) |
| Peter: Adjective. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: Copula. |
| Naomi: か (ka) |
| Peter: And question marking particle. Next we have |
| Naomi: 静かじゃないです。(Shizuka ja nai desu.) |
| Peter: It’s not quiet or it’s never quiet. Now the main point here is literally we have quiet is not. Literally that’s what we have. And again we went over じゃない (ja nai) in the past and that was with nouns. Now na-adjectives are formed. The negative of na-adjectives are formed exactly the same way as the negative of nouns. So if you remember in the previous lesson, we had it’s not meat. |
| Naomi: 肉じゃないです。(Niku ja nai desu.) |
| Peter: You take the word for meat. |
| Naomi: 肉 (niku) |
| Peter: And you follow it with |
| Naomi: じゃない (ja nai) |
| Peter: Meat it’s not. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: And here the です (desu) is just to increase the politeness level. The same case here. The です (desu) here is just increasing the politeness level. Without the です (desu), it’s informal Japanese and maybe not appropriate for this situation but what’s going on here grammatically is we have the na-adjective 静か (shizuka), followed by |
| Naomi: じゃない (ja nai) |
| Peter: Which is it’s not. So quiet it’s not. Quiet is not and again the fact that they are talking about here which was mentioned in the previous sentence is inferred. So if we had the whole sentence textbook style, it would read like this. |
| Naomi: ここは静かじゃないです。(Koko wa shizuka ja nai desu.) |
| Peter: Here quiet is not. It’s not quiet here. |
| Naomi: ここはいつも静かじゃないです。(Koko wa itsumo shizuka ja nai desu.) |
| Peter: It’s never quiet here. Okay, then this is followed by |
| Naomi: 今日は特別です。(Kyō wa tokubetsu desu.) |
| Peter: Today is special. |
| Naomi: 冬果さんの髪はまっすぐですね。(Fuyuka-san no kami wa massugu desu ne.) |
| Peter: You have straight hair, Fuyuka. |
| Naomi: He could have said あなたの髪はまっすぐですね (anata no kami wa massugu desu ne). |
| Peter: Yeah. |
| Naomi: But yeah, he used Fuyuka’s name instead of あなた (anata). |
| Peter: Yes, because lots of time in Japanese they use the name. Now let’s look at the possessive going on here. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: We have |
| Naomi: 冬果さんの (Fuyuka-san no) |
| Peter: Fuyuka’s, possessive here, Fuyuka’s. |
| Naomi: 髪 (kami) |
| Peter: Fuyuka’s hair. |
| Naomi: は (wa) |
| Peter: Topic marking particle. |
| Naomi: まっすぐ (massugu) |
| Peter: Straight. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: Is. |
| Naomi: ね (ne) |
| Peter: And again the ね (ne). Let’s look at the first part. We translate this as you have straight hair, Fuyuka. Again because in English, in this situation, we would call the person you, but in Japanese, it’s the opposite. You use the person’s name followed by the possessive followed by hair. A point of interest in this sentence is the ね (ne). This last ね (ne) is another use. It’s not a tag question but it's adding emphasis to this statement. So here it is acting as an emphasizer. So again it can be used to show interest, to be a tag question and here emphasizing like probably the fact that he didn’t notice this before today. |
| Naomi: ああ、そうでしょうね。(Ā, sō deshō ne.) |
| Peter: And now he is like, well you know, you have straight hair, Naomi. Next we have. |
| Naomi: とてもきれいです。(Totemo kirei desu.) |
| Peter: It’s very beautiful. Now literally very beautiful is. |
| Naomi: とてもきれい (totemo kirei) |
| Peter: Very beautiful is, but what are we talking about here? Her or her hair? |
| Naomi: I think he meant 冬果さんの髪はとてもきれいです (Fuyuka-san no kami wa totemo kirei desu). |
| Peter: Yeah, it’s the hair. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: So it’s not mentioned and since we didn’t change topic, it stays on the topic. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: And the topic is hair. Then we have |
| Naomi: そうですか。(Sō desu ka.) |
| Peter: Is that so? |
| Naomi: 髪だけですか。(Kami dake desu ka.) |
| Peter: Only my hair? So but literally hair only is which kind of makes sense. Hair only is beautiful. So we have literally hair |
| Naomi: 髪 (kami) |
| Peter: Followed by |
| Naomi: だけ (dake) |
| Peter: Only. |
| Naomi: です (desu) |
| Peter: Is. |
| Naomi: か (ka) |
| Peter: Question. Hair only is |
| Naomi: When you receive a compliment, you can use this grammar like... シャツ、きれいですね。ああ、シャツだけですか。パンツ、かっこいいですね。ああ、パンツだけですか。(Shatsu, kirei desu ne. Ā, shatsu dake desu ka. Pantsu, kakkoii desu ne. Ā, pantsu dake desu ka.) |
| Peter: Your shirt is cool. Ah just my shirt. Your pants are cool. Just my pants? |
| Naomi: Of course only with good friends but… |
| Peter: Yeah and it’s kind of like it works out very nice. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) As a joke, yeah. |
| Peter: Yeah. |
| Naomi: It works really well. |
| Peter: Here we have just the noun followed by だけ (dake). |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: There is also other ways to use this but for now, we are going to stick with this. Again check the PDF for more detailed explanation on this and other things covered today. Next we have |
| Naomi: え、いやいや。(E, iya iya.) |
| Peter: Hah! No, no, no, no like no, hold on, wait. |
| Naomi: いやいや (iya iya), we often use this. |
| Peter: No, no. |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) Some people say いえいえ (ie ie) and some people say いやいや (iya iya). |
| Peter: This is followed by |
| Naomi: もちろん (mochiron) |
| Peter: Of course. |
| Naomi: 冬果さんもきれいです。(Fuyuka-san mo kirei desu.) |
| Peter: You are also beautiful, Fuyuka. |
| Naomi: はい。(Hai.) |
| Peter: So you have the particle も (mo) in there. So finally we have |
| Naomi: どうも。(Dōmo.) |
| Peter: Thank you. |
Outro |
| Peter: All right, so that is going to do for today. |
| Naomi: じゃあまた。(Jā mata.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| （チョキチョキ チョキチョキ）(chokichoki chokichoki) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : 静かですね。(Shizuka desu ne.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : ここは、いつも静かですか。(Koko wa, itsumo shizuka desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : 静かじゃないです。今日は特別です。冬果さんの髪はまっすぐですね。とてもきれいです。(Shizuka ja nai desu. Kyō wa tokubetsu desu. Fuyuka-san no kami wa massugu desu ne. Totemo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : そうですか。髪だけですか。(Sō desu ka. Kami dake desu ka.) |
| 西本 秋 (Nishimoto Shū) : え、いやいや。もちろん、冬果さんもきれいです。(E, iya iya. Mochiron, Fuyuka-san mo kirei desu.) |
| 北川 冬果 (Kitagawa Fuyuka) : どうも。(Dōmo.) |
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