ようこそ！
Welcome to Sakura Neko’s Japanese Study Room! Here, I break down anime quotes and explain grammar points used in them. If you like anime, especially Fullmetal Alchemist, and are learning Japanese, please read on！
Have you ever learnt Japanese before and realised that many Japanese people or characters in anime don’t actually talk like how you learnt it from textbooks? This is because if you are learning Japanese chances are, you start learning all the sentences in the formal form, while many Japanese people and characters in anime talk in the casual form. While knowing the polite form first has some advantages (e.g. avoiding to come across rude), this can be a little frustrating especially if you are aiming to talk like how Japanese people talk, want to understand TV shows, or have conversations with Japanese people.
Today’s phrase
Today, we will explore the casual form for nouns and adjectives, focusing on this phrase from Fullmetal Alchemist.
kono sekai wa fukanzen da. Dakara utsukushii.
この世界は不完全だ。だから、美しい。
(The world isn’t perfect. That’s why it’s beautiful.)
Plain form (Casual Form)
There are two plain forms in this phrase, namely 不完全だ(fukanzen da) and 美しい(utukushii). You can make the plain forms for nouns and adjectives by following the patterns below. Plain form of verbs are also called the dictionary form. We will talk about verbs on another day.
[い adjective] 。
[な adjective] + だ。
[noun] + だ。
Here, when you use an い adjective, you don’t have to add anything. When you use either a な adjective or a noun, then you need to add だ. In this phrase, there is 不完全だ (hukanzen da), which is a combination of [noun] + [da], and 美しい (utuskushii), which is an い adjective itself.
Other examples include
umai
うまい！
(tasty)
usoda
うそだ！
(it’s a lie!)
みなさん、わかりましたか？If you have any questions, please leave comments and I will try to answer as soon as I can!
じゃあ、みなさん、ありがとうございました！
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