Japanese: Conjugating na-adjectives

Hello everyone!
I hope you are doing well♡
In this post, I will talk about what I have learned about conjugating na-adjectives.

In Japanese, as I have mentioned in a previous post, we have 2 types of adjectives:

1. i-adjectives.
2. na-adjectives. 

I have talked about conjugating i-adjectives before. Click here to read my post about conjugating i-adjectives.😊

So, in this post we will see how to conjugate na-adjectives.

Let's first take some examples of na-adjectives.

1. 綺麗 (きれい - kirei) = beautiful; clean. 
2. 親切 (しんせつ - shin se tsu) = kind.

Let's conjugate them!

First: present tense.

a. Affirmative:

Formal:

You just add です (desu) - the polite sentence ending particle.

綺麗 → 綺麗です (kirei desu)

親切 → 親切です  (shinsetsu desu)

example sentences:

あなたは綺麗です。(anata wa kirei desu) = you are beautiful.

お母さんは親切です (okaasan wa shinsetsu desu) = my mother is kind.

Informal:

You add だ (da) instead of です. 

あなたは綺麗(だ) 。you are beautiful.

お母さんは親切(だ) 。my mother is kind.

(you can actually drop だ and it is still correct.)

b. Negative:

Formal:

です becomes ではありません (dewa arimasen)。

That's it ^^

Just drop です and replace it with ではありません. 

example sentences:

この部屋は綺麗ではありません。(kono heya wa kirei dewa arimasen) = this room is not beautiful.

あの人は親切ではありません。(ano hito wa shinsetsu dewa arimasen) = That person is not kind.

Informal:

Replace ありません with ない (nai).

So instead of saying 綺麗ではありません (kirei dewa arimasen), replace (arimasen) with (nai). You will get: 綺麗ではない . 



Second: past tense.

a. Affirmative: 

Formal: 
Just add でした (deshita) after the adjective.
綺麗 → 綺麗でした . (was beautiful)
親切 → 親切 でした. (was kind)

Informal: 
Just add だった (datta)
綺麗 → 綺麗だった. (was beautiful)
親切 → 親切だった. (was kind)

b. Negative: 

Formal:
Add ではありませんでした after the adjective.
綺麗 → 綺麗ではありませんでした. (was not beautiful)
親切 → 親切ではありませんでした. (was not kind)

Informal: 
Add ではなかった.
綺麗 → 綺麗ではなかった. (was not beautiful)
親切 → 親切ではなかった. (was not kind)

That's pretty much it!
Actually you can replace ではない with じゃない, and ではなかった with じゃなかった. This way you will sound more casual I think^^

That's it for this post.
I hope you find it helpful and see you again soon!♡