Question on 立ぱな in example sentence

Japanese Language Grammar
#1

I’m in the lesson for scholar and in the first example sentence there is a part I don’t understand.かれのお父さんは、立ぱな学者です。
(His father is a splendid scholar.) I don’t understand the 立ぱな before scholar. Also I don’t know the reading of 立 in this instance either.

This is my first post so I’m not completely sure I am doing this correctly! Thanks in advance!!!

#2

It’s 立派 (りっぱ)。

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#3

From what I can tell the example sentences often include vocab that isn’t understandable. My guess is that these example sentences are there if you really want to push yourself. Similarly to how if you started reading even a simple book, there is a good chance you would come across words you don’t recognise.

The example sentences seem to be on the simpler side in the earlier levels, but quite quickly ramp up in difficulty. Expect to use google translate and other tools if you really want to understand all of them. Personally I don’t pay much attention to the example sentences, and get my reading practice from other sources like graded readers.

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#4

As morteasd said, it’s 立派（りっぱ）, but with the second character written in hiragana. The “な” is being used to attach the adjective to 学者 (you normally can’t say just 立派学者)

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#5

Also, 立派 is written that way because you haven’t learned 派 yet. They chose that way to deal with unknown kanji to avoid having to code furigana… but it makes thing even more confusing for beginners imo.

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#6

Thanks! I kept googling, Jisho and even Hinative to no avail but you guys came through! So with the full kanji form I was able to find out it was a Na-adjective. Since I only started learning Japanese 3 months ago I don’t know much grammar or vocabulary. I seem to find the first example sentence in WaniKani lessons easier than the other two for some reason usually.

#7

They purposely made those simpler on the earlier levels. The other sentences are aimed at more advanced users.

But read them all, even if you can’t read the Japanese, the translation will give you clues about the general usage of the vocab. Especially when it comes to casualness. Is it a more businessy word, or can you just encounter it in conversations between friends, for example.

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