Lesson 13 of 24
This Curry Is Red. Very Red.
about 14 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Describe something now or in the past, and say what it was not like.
Words this lesson teaches
- おいしい
- delicious
- からい
- spicy, hot
- あまい
- sweet, mild
- あつい
- hot (to the touch)
- つめたい
- cold (to the touch)
- あかい
- red
- かんたん
- simple, easy
- にんき
- popular
- むずかしい
- difficult
- カレー
- curry
- どんな
- what kind of
What it explains
い adjectives in the past
からいです becomes からかったです, and the negative からくないです becomes からくなかったです. The adjective carries the tense and です just stays polite — which is why からいでした is wrong, and a common early mistake. いい is irregular again: よかったです, よくなかったです.
な adjectives in the past
These behave like nouns, so they use the endings you already know: かんたんでした, かんたんじゃありませんでした. Nothing about the adjective itself changes. The whole difficulty of Japanese adjectives is knowing which of the two groups a word is in — and な adjectives are the easier group.
どうですか and どんな
どうですか asks what something is like and invites any description. どんな goes in front of a noun to ask what kind: どんな カレーですか. The difference matters — どうですか asks for an opinion, どんな asks for a category.
The scene itself is in the app.
Lesson one of this track is free to read in full. From lesson two on, the story, the audio and the review are part of a free account.
