Hello everyone, welcome to the fifth chapter (^.^)(^｡^)(^-^)(^A^)（＾_＾）
If you haven’t already, please check out the home thread for our study group here.
Please use this thread to discuss Genki I, chapter five. Talk about what you learned, ask questions, and do group activities together. Also please compare answers, BUT please use spoiler formatting so that people who haven’t done the worksheets yet can’t cheat on accident.
Update: Also, there is an answer key for Genki and multiple users have posted screenshots of them. Thank you for these contributions!
You can format a spoiler like this:
[spoiler][the answer to a question in genki][/spoiler]
Thank you everyone for participating! If you are a little behind that’s totally fine, just be sure to use the Chapter 4 thread instead.
As usual, sorry if the formatting is off in places (I’m copying them from a personal doc) and feel free to correct anything as I haven’t looked at this chapter in over a week.
Chapter 5 Notes
Chapter 5
Adjectives
い-adjectives (面白い映画 interesting movie)
affirmative
negative
Non-past formal
面白いです
面白くないです
Past formal
面白かったです
面白くなかったです
な-adjectives (元気な先生 energetic teacher)
affirmative
negative
Non-past formal
元気です
元気じゃないです
Past formal
元気でした
元気じゃなかったです
Irregular (いい good)
affirmative
negative
Non-past formal
いいです
よくないです
Past formal
よかったです
よくなかったです
CASUAL ADJECTIVES
い-adjectives (面白い映画 interesting movie)
Drop です from formal to make い-adjectives informal
affirmative
negative
Non-past informal
面白い
面白くない
Past informal
面白かった
面白くなかった
な-adjectives (元気な先生 energetic teacher)
For affirmative, add informal endings in place of formal endings
For negative, simply drop です from end
affirmative
negative
Non-past informal
元気だ
元気じゃない
Past informal
元気だった
元気じゃなかった
Irregular (いい good)
Drop です from formal
affirmative
negative
Non-past informal
いい
よくない
Past informal
よかった
よくなかった
好きな・嫌いな “like/dislike”
Xは Yが (好き・嫌い) です。 X likes/dislikes Y.
は marks the person experiencing like/dislike; が marks the liked object instead of を
好きな and 嫌いな both act as な adjectives. They can also be translated to likeable/dislikable to show they are adjectives.
The thing that is liked or disliked uses the particle が
ロバートさんは日本語のクラスが好きです。Robert likes Japanese class (In regards to Robert, Japanese class is likeable.)
To show that you neither like or dislike something, use this sentence
好きでも嫌いでもないです。I neither like nor dislike it.
To show that something is your favorite, use the な-form of 好きな.
これは私の好きな本です。This is my favorite book.
大 can be added to the beginning of either to show extreme like or dislike
私はビールが大嫌いです。I hate tea.
∼ましょう・∼ましょうか “Let’s…”
A formal, but less polite way of inviting someone along
Formed using the same stem as ます-form, but replace ます with ましょう
一緒に図書館で勉強しましょう。Let’s study together in the library.
喫茶店でコーヒーを飲みましょうか。Shall we drink coffee in the cafe?
DICTIONARY NOTES (p. 240)
“A verb ending which indicates the first person’s volition or invitation in formal speech”
Less polite than using ませんか, but still a formal verb ending
CASUAL NOTES
The casual volitional is formed using these rules
る-verbs: drop る and add よう
見る→見よう
う-verbs: drop う and add おう (change hiragana ending in う to お form)
行く→行こう
買う→買おう
Irregulars
する→しよう
来る→来よう (こよう)
This will be explained in more detail in Genki II, Lesson 15
Counting
There are many different counting words depending on what you are counting
The ocean. I think it has to do with describing the appearance of something. Although now that I think about it both might be correct, but “ga” has a more natural feeling to me.
Anyone correct me if I’m wrong.
Out of curiosity is there any hints to distinguishing between い or な adjectives? I saw there was some hints of narrowing down う and る verbs from Chapter 3, but wasn’t sure if there was anything similar or should I just be memorizing individually from the start?
Well aside from that fact that い adjectives end in い and most な adjectives don’t end in い(as the な isn’t added on unless there’s something after the な adjective like a noun) it think you just have to memorise them.
When I learn them I distinguish them by writing the な in brackets after the なadjectives. What you could also do is write the past form next to each one as the past forms differ for い and な
If you want to really cement it you could write some sentences out with the different tense adjectives. Then it’d really stick, but tbh as far as I’ve learnt a lot of な adjectives don’t end in I so they’re easy to remember.
Hope this helps
P.s. genki separates them for you anyway in the vocab section so if you copied them down separate it should be easier to distinguish in your brain. Maybe use a different coloured highlighter for both if you’re writing on paper. So all い adjectives you could highlight pink and all な adjectives you could highlight yellow.
This was the last chapter that was review for me, hopefully that won’t mean that the rest goes slower than the review chapters did.
Related to this chapter, I was watching an adjective video on Japanese Ammo with Misa, and she mentions that many textbooks teach やさしい as both easy and kind, and while this isn’t strictly wrong, かんたん(な) is much more common for easy. This chapter of Genki does teach やさしい for both, so it many be worth learning both やさしい and かんたん.
Chapter 5 Notes
Adjectives
Although Japanese adjective have functions to modify nouns, like English, they also function as verbs when used as predicates.
There are two types of adjectives, grouped based on their last syllables when modifying nouns: い-adjectives and な-adjectives. Note that some な-adjectives do end in い when not modifying nouns.
Japanese adjectives conjugate in tense and polarity similar to verbs.
Adjective conjugation is divided by type (い and な), with one primary exception (いい).
In sentences using 好き or きらい, the person who likes or dislikes is marked with は and the person or thing that is liked or disliked is marked with が. (が will be replace with は in contexts where multiple things are being contrasted).
XはYが好きです。= X likes Y. (replace 好き with きらい for dislike)
Add 大 before 好き or きらい to indicate strong like or dislike.
Cultural note: It’s considered more polite (and is more common) to say that you don’t like something (好きじゃないです) rather than that you dislike it (きらいです).
～ましょう/～ましょうか
～ましょう and ～ましょうか can replace ～ます to say “let’s…” or “shall we…”
Examples:
すしを食べましょう。= Let’s eat sushi.
日本語で話しましょうか。= Shall we speak in Japanese?
Counting
Different counting words are used for different kind of items. Number words often come after the items counted.
New counting word: 枚 = counter for sheets of paper, stamps, and other flat objects.
I am doing a catch up on these reviews but hope everyone’s studies are going great! Just trying to memorize the い and な adjective forms; I do get mixed up a lot on the colloquial vs conservative, but unless I plan to move to Japan or talk with Japanese speakers on a daily basis, I will try to just focus on the conservative forms. Here are Chapter 5 answers.
