Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

55 Table 5. Affirmative and negative past types of verb, noun, and adjective sentences in Japanese. Past - Affirmative Past - Negative Past - Affirmative Verb Sentence Wakarimashita. Wakarimasen deshita. Noun Sentence Nihon deshita. Nihon ja nakatta desu. Adjective Sentence Takakatta desu. Takaku nakatta desu. The adjective ii has special forms. This is the only exception in the entire class of adjectives. Ii desu It’s good Yoku nai desu It’s not good Yokatta desu It was good. Yoku nakatta desu. It wasn’t good. Yoku is one of the most commonly used adverbs and was already introduced in Lesson 1 as in yoku wakarimasu, yoku tabemasu , etc. Yokatta desu nee is a common response to good news. 3-1-2 Adjective + Noun In Lesson 2, you saw two ways of extending a noun into a noun phrase. One way is to modify a noun by another, as in the sequence /X no Y/ in the phrase Amerika no kaisha ‘American company.’ Another example is the kono-sono-ano-dono group that precedes a noun, as in ano kaisha ‘that company’. These two ways can be combined as in kono Amerika no kaisha ‘this American company.’ Adjectives can directly modify a noun to make a noun phrase (no need for the particle no ). takai keitai expensive cellphone takaku nai keitai cellphone that is not expensive It’s possible to combine more than one adjective or other modifying elements to extend a noun phrase. chiisai takai keitai small, expensive cellphone kono Amerika no chiisai takai keitai this small, expensive American cellphone