Nihongo o Narau - Lesson 17

Lesson 17: It wasn't red.
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This lesson is a continuation of Lessons 14 and 16. Recall that Lesson 14 dealt with i adjectives and Lesson 16 dealt with negative i adjectives. Recall that in order to change an i adjective from affirmative to negative form, one changes the last i to kunai. In order to make the past form of an i adjective, change the last i to katta. Remember that the negative (nai) form of i adjectives are also i adjectives, so you can change them to the past form in the same way.
Example: akai akakatta akakunai akakunakatta omoshiroi omoshirokatta omoshirokunakatta muzukashii muzukashikatta muzukashikunakatta	red was red not red was not red interesting was interesting was not interesting difficult was difficult was not difficult
The " noun wa adjective desu :=: noun is adjective" pattern still holds true for the past and past negative forms of i adjectives.
Examples: Kasa wa akakatta desu.	The umbrella was red.
Shiken wa muzukashikatta desu.	The test was difficult.
Eiga wa omoshirokunakatta desu.	The movie wasn't interesting.
Sono hon wa atarashikunakatta desu.	That book was not new.
These adjectives can also be used to modify nouns.
Examples: akakatta kuruma	a car that was red
muzukashikatta shiken	a test that was difficult
atarashikunakatta enpitsu	a pencil that wasn't new
Note that the examples above are literally ' a was-red car', 'a was-difficult test', and 'a wasn't new pencil', but if you're going to translate it is always better to translate into proper English rather than Japanese-ized English.
Lesson 17 Vocabulary: akai omoshiroi muzukashii -katta -kunakatta shiken	red interesting difficult suffix for past tense i adjectives suffix for past negative i adjectives test (n.)
Lesson 17 Review Page
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