Learn the top adjectives to describe people
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| Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. In this lesson, we’re going to talk about 10 Japanese adjectives you can use to describe people. |
| Let’s get started! |
| Okay, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Let’s start with this side of the board. Let’s go through each vocabulary point one by one. |
| The first vocabulary word is せがたかい (se ga takai). |
| せがたかい (se ga takai) |
| This means “tall.” |
| Next is わかい (wakai). |
| わかい (wakai) |
| This means “young.” |
| Next is まじめ (majime). |
| まじめ (majime) |
| This means “serious.” |
| Next is かわいい (kawaii). |
| かわいい (kawaii) |
| It means “cute.” |
| Make sure to make this (-ii) at the end very clear. |
| かわいい (kawaii) |
| Next is かっこいい (kakkoii). |
| かっこいい (kakkoii) |
| This means “cool.” |
| In this word, also, there’s this (-ii) sound at the end and this stop sound before the こ (ko). |
| かっこいい (kakkoii) |
| かっこいい (kakkoii) “cool” |
| Okay, let’s take a look at the second group of vocabulary words. |
| First, we have せがひくい (se ga hikui). |
| せがひくい (se ga hikui) |
| This means “short.” |
| This is the opposite of せがたかい (se ga takai) “tall.” |
| Next is ほそい (hosoi). |
| ほそい (hosoi) |
| This means “thin.” |
| ほそい (hosoi) |
| Next is きれい (kirei). |
| きれい (kirei) |
| It means “pretty.” |
| Next, ハンサム (hansamu). |
| ハンサム (hansamu) “handsome” |
| You might notice that this word is written in Katakana because it’s a loanword from another language, English, “handsome.” |
| Finally, we have やさしい (yasashii). |
| やさしい (yasashii) |
| It means “gentle.” |
| So, also note, this word ends in a similar (-ii) pattern. (Shi) and (i) at the end creates a long (-ii) sound, やさしい (yasashii). |
| Okay! So, those are all the vocabulary words we’re going to practice in this lesson. |
| Okay, let’s take a look at the dialogue that uses this vocabulary. |
| Let’s start here. |
| あれは おとうとです。 (Are wa otōto desu.) |
| あれは おとうとです。 (Are wa otōto desu.) “That’s my younger brother.” |
| The response is: |
| へー、せがたかいですね。 (Hē, se ga takai desu ne.) |
| せがたかいですね。 (Se ga takai desu ne.) |
| We learned せがたかい (se ga takai) means “tall.” |
| “Oh, he’s tall.” せがたかいですね。 (Se ga takai desu ne.) |
| Okay. Now, let’s look at a couple of examples and review the basic pattern that we used with this vocabulary. |
| Let’s start here with this example sentence. |
| ぼくは わかいです。 (Boku wa wakai desu.) |
| ぼくは わかいです。 (Boku wa wakai desu.) “I am young.” |
| This is said by a male speaker. We know this because of the word ぼく (boku), which means “I” for men. |
| ぼくは わかいです。 (Boku wa wakai desu.) “I’m young.” |
| The second example sentence here is: |
| かのじょは せがひくいです。 (Kanojo wa se ga hikui desu.) |
| かのじょは せがひくいです。 (Kanojo wa se ga hikui desu.) “She is short.” |
| So, in these sentences, the adjectives are in red; わかい (wakai) and せがひくい (se ga hikui). So, you’ll notice, in both of these example sentences, we follow the adjective with です (desu). So, this is our basic pattern for this grammar. |
| The basic pattern that you can use is: |
| [PERSON]は[ADJECTIVE]です。 |
| ([PERSON] wa [ADJECTIVE] desu.) |
| [PERSON]は[ADJECTIVE]です。 |
| ([PERSON] wa [ADJECTIVE] desu.) |
| This means: |
| [PERSON] is [ADJECTIVE]. |
| As we see here: |
| ぼくは わかいです。 (Boku wa wakai desu). |
| So “I” は (wa) わかいです (wakai desu). |
| “I am young.” |
| And… |
| かのじょは せがひくいです。(Kanojo wa se ga hikui desu.) “She is short.” |
| We also saw this in the dialogue: |
| へー、せがたかいですね。 (Hē, se ga takai desu ne.) |
| In this case, we don’t have the person before the adjective because it’s understood from context. The first speaker said, that’s my younger brother, so we understand from the situation. You can use this pattern to make your own sentences that describe people. |
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