はい、みなさんこんにちは。Welcome to Sakura Neko’s Japanese Study Room, where you can learn Japanese from anime quotes! Today’s topic is Toaru Majutsu no Index (とある魔術の禁書目録 A Certain Magical Index).
If you read this article, you will learn:
✅How the prefix 「不」(fu) is used
✅A variety of examples of expressions with「不」
First, I ask you to watch this video and get you to guess today’s phrase!
As you might have guessed, today’s phrase is…
不幸だ！
fukōda!
Such misfortune!
The Prefix「不」
In Japanese,「不」is used as a prefix. This can be attached to nouns and adjectives. This prefix means ‘not/non’ and adds a negative meaning to the word this is attached to.
You normally see this prefix attached to 1 to 3 kanji characters. The pronunciation of「不」is 「ふ fu」and the following kanji characters are pronounced with their On reading.
不幸だ！
fukōda!
Such misfortune!
This phrase can be broken down into…
不 ふ (fu): a negative prefix
幸 : On-reading: こう Kun-reading: しあわせ、さいわい、さち Meaning: hapiness
だ : Casual version of です. Essentially, this means ‘to be’.
Therefore, you can read 不幸 as fu (the prefix) + kou (on reading of 幸). The meaning of 不幸 is literally, ‘non happy’: unhappy, unfortunate, misfortune etc.
「不」As Part Of A Word
Sometimes, you see 「不」embedded in a word. In this case, you can infer the meaning of the whole word if you know the kanji in it. As we saw above, you can break down 不幸 into 2 kanji characters: 不 and 幸. Since the meaning of 幸 is ‘fortune’ or ‘happiness’, you can infer that the meaning of 不幸 is ‘misfortune’. The pronunciation is always ふ(fu) + On reading of the kanji. Let’s look at some examples.
不安 (ふあん fuan): uneasiness, anxiety, worried
「安」has few meanings: relax, peaceful, quiet, cheap. When you are not relaxed, you feel 不安 (uneasy).
不運 (ふうん fuun): misfortune, unlucky
「運」means either ‘luck’ or ‘to carry’. When you are not lucky, you are 不運. You can also say 「運がいい」for ‘to be lucky’ and 「運が悪い」for ‘to be unlucky‘.
不吉 (ふきつ fukitsu): ominous, foreboding
「吉 きち kichi」refers to ‘good luck’. 「不吉」な できごと refers to ‘an incident that hits something bad may occur’.
不審 (ふしん fushin): doubtful, suspicious
「審」refers to ‘judging’ and ‘trialing’. If someone is not judged clearly, then they could be 不審な人 (a suspicious person).
不可欠 (ふかけつ fukaketsu): essential
「可 か ka」refers to ‘possible’ or ‘can’. 「欠 けつ ketsu」refers to ‘lack’. If you cannot afford to lack something, it’s 不可欠 (essential)
不死身 (ふじみ fujimi): immortal
「死」refers to ‘death’. 「身」refers to ‘body’. If you have a non–dying body, then you are 不死身 (immortal).
「不」As A Prefix To An Existing Expression
While there are some words with 「不」 embedded in them, there are other words with「不」. There are many words where 不」is be attached as a negative prefix, in the same way as ‘un’ for ‘unimportant’ or ‘unemployment’. Let’s look at examples!
不健康 (ふけんこう fukenkou): unhealthy
As 健康 means ‘health‘, 不健康 simply means ‘bad health‘. You can use this as an adjective by attaching な (不健康な: unhealthy).
不可能 (ふかのう fukanou): impossible
可能 means ‘possible‘. Therefore, with the negative prefix, 不可能 means ‘impossible‘.
不完全 (ふかんぜん fukanzen): incomplete, imperfect
完全 refers to ‘perfection‘ or ‘completeness‘. Therefore, 不完全 means ‘imperfection‘.
不自然 (ふしぜん fushizen)
自然 refers to ‘nature‘ or ‘natural‘. 不自然 means ’unnatural‘.
不十分 (ふじゅうぶん fujuubun)
While 十分 when pronounced as じゅっぷん (juppun) means ‘ten minutes’, when it’s pronounced as じゅうぶん (juubun) it means ‘enough‘. 不十分（ふじゅうぶん) means ‘not enough’.
不親切 (ふしんせつ fushinsetsu)
親切 refers to ‘kindness‘. Therefore, 不親切 means ‘inconsiderateness‘.
These expressions are nouns and you can change most of them to な-adjectives simply by adding a な at the end.
まとめ – Summary
To summarise, this article looked at the catchphrase fromToaru Majutsu no Index (とある魔術の禁書目録 A Certain Magical Index), and explored the use of 「不」. Now, you know that this is a negative prefix. You see words where「不」is embedded in them (such as 不幸) and words where 「不」is attached to existing expressions (such as 不健康).
I hope you found this helpful! If you liked this post, make sure you check out other articles as well! You can also find more phrases from my twitter account.
じゃあ、みなさんさようなら！
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