Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

64 Michael: Sou desu ne. Amari benri ja nai desu nee. You are right. It’s not very convenient, is it. べんり そうですね。あまり便利じゃないですね。 Honda: Zannen desu nee. Too bad, huh! ざんねん 残念ですねえ。 Vocabulary sugoi すごい 凄い amazing, great sugoku すごく 凄く really, amazingly kirei きれい（な） pretty, clean de mo でも but tooi とおい 遠い far benri べんり（な） 便利 convenient zannen ざんねん（な） 残念 too bad, regrettable ＋ kitanai きたない dirty ＋ chikai ちかい 近い close, near ＋ fuben ふべん（な） 不便 inconvenient ＋ dame だめ（な） bad, unacceptable ＋ yuumei ゆうめい（な） 有名 famous Grammar Notes 3-3-1 Na -Nouns When one noun describes another, there are two possible patterns. You’ve seen one of these already with the particle no: watashi no keitai ‘my cell phone,’ nihongo no sensei ‘the Japanese teacher.’ A smaller set of nouns hooks up to nouns with the particle na: kirei na nihongo ‘beautiful Japanese,’ benri na keitai ‘convenient cell phone.’ These will be called “ na nouns.” All na nouns are intangible, but not all intangibles are na nouns. All na nouns will be followed by ( na ) in the glossary to distinguish them from regular nouns. Note that the pronoun no can replace the main noun in this combination. kirei na apaato a clean apartment → kirei na no a clean one amerika no yuumei na kaisha a famous company in America → amerika no yuumei na no a famouse one in America 3-3-2 Adjective ~Ku Forms as Adverbs The – ku form of adjectives are also used as adverbs. Yoku wakarimasu. I understand it well. Sugoku kirei desu. It’s really beautiful.