How to Learn Japanese Adjectives

Video Transcript

"YUU ASAKURA: I would like to give you more words to describe things. So these are a list of adjectives and I'm going to explain each of this. And the first one is pronounced "ookii." Yes. And that means big. So the second one is the opposite [Speaking Japanese] "chiisai." Yes, it means small. And moving on, this one is pronounced "atsui" and that means hot. And you can use it as a temperature of the air or temperature of the food in either way. But the opposite is a little bit tricky, because this one, "tsumetai," is a temperature of an object. If you're talking about the weather, "the air is cold." You have to say "samui." So please make these two words different. And this one is "omoshiroi." It means fun or interesting. If something attracts your attention, we call it "omoshiroi." It could be just merely ha-ha funny, or it could be intellectually interesting. And the last one, right here is "takai." It means high. And I listed two words here, because this one is used for price too. It means expensive. So "hikui" is just low, as the level goes. And the third, "yasui" is inexpensive or cheap. So when you remember some adjectives, it is very good to remember as a pair, one and the opposite. So please do so with these, big-small, high-low, hot-cold. But just remember, sometimes the opposite cannot be just one; there might be two of them."