Context sentence for 大きい does not contain い

The first context sentence is

このぼうしは大きすぎます。
This hat is too big.

But it does not actually contain the vocab 大きい. I can see 大き but not い.

い adjectives in Japanese can be conjugated, or in this case, have helping verbs appended to them.

Some examples
大きい - big
大きく - adverbial form of big
大きくなる - to become big
大きかった - was big
大きかったら - if (something) is big
大きすぎる - to be too big
大きすぎたら - if (something) is too big

Things can get pretty extensive while still being the same base word.

9 Likes

大きく is a separate vocab item for some reason… maybe to show the distinction with 大いに? Also 足りる・足りない and maybe a few others I can’t think of right now. Those aside, WaniKani generally tends to present conjugations in the example sentences without explaining them. You can learn from lots of other resources out there though.

What makes that more weird is that 足りない actually does have its own meaning that isn’t merely the negative of 足りる, which has its own entry in the dictionary. Basically, it can mean “foolish” or “stupid” when used with a person.

足りない男, is not merely “insufficient man,” it’s “foolish man”.

But their entry for 足りない is just about the negative of 足りる.

1 Like

I didn’t know that. Seems like a missed opportunity…

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.