Casual Na-Adjectives
“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it.“ - Jonathan Winters
To start things off, we’re going to look at na-adjectives because they’re treated just like nouns (which you just learned). Think of this more like a review than anything, I’d say.
First, let’s remember how noun sentence enders (です, etc) get modified to become casual.
aわたし は がくせい です
I am a student
aわたし は がくせい だ
I am a student (casual)
Now, if we assume na-adjectives and nouns are treated in exactly the same way, we can do some simple swapping.
aこれ は べんり です
This is convenient
aこれ は べんり だ
This is convenient (casual)
It’s the same AはBです (A is B) pattern, where B is both the noun and the na-adjective.
Of course, there are other noun sentence enders out there, and they’re all treated exactly the same way as you learned before.
aかれ は げんき でした
He was well / healthy
aかれ は げんき だった
He was well / health (casual)
aブラッド・ピットさん は びんぼう じゃありません
Brad Pitt is not poor
aブラッド・ピットさん は びんぼう じゃない
Brad Pitt is not poor (casual)
aぜんぜん ていねい じゃありませんでした
(Something) was not polite at all
aぜんぜん ていねい じゃなかった
(Something) wasn’t polite at all (casual)
As you can see, na-adjectives get treated exactly the same as the nouns did, making things a lot easier for you since you have less to remember.
We’re going to see that i-adjectives aren’t exactly the same, but they aren’t all that difficult either. In fact, I’d say casual i-adjectives are the easiest thing to learn out of all these chapters (as long as you did okay with all the i-adjective tenses).