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akira17 wrote:I'm confused. When do I use "na" and when do I not use "na"?
Bueller_007 wrote:akira17 wrote:I'm confused. When do I use "na" and when do I not use "na"?
There are usually said to be two classes of adjectives:
"~i" adjectives (形容詞)
and
"~na adjectives (形容動詞)
There are actually other kinds of adjectives too, but we won't get into those here.
Usually--and I emphasize that this is a generalization--"~i" adjectives are KUN-YOMI words. They use the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji. This means that they are often single-kanji words, with one or two hiragana at the end. For example, 暑い (hot), 暖かい, (warm), 涼しい (cool), 寒い (cold).
"~na" is generally used for ON-YOMI words (using imported Chinese pronunciation) and foreign words. For example, 難解な (difficult to understand), 複雑な (complicated), 無理な (impossible), イージーな (easy).
There are exceptions, and some words, like 大きい/大きな can use both, but that's basically as good an explanation as you'll get. In the beginner stage, you won't have a clue about kanji and kun-yomis and on-yomis, so basically, you have to remember them all individually.