Using English adjectives in Japanese
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The Japanese language uses a lot of foreign loan words, most of them are English. When you think of katakana-written foreign loan words, many nouns probably come to your mind: アイスクリーム ice cream, コンピューター computer, シャツ shirt, ヘリコプター helicopter, etc.
But did you know that many English adjectives are also used in Japanese? Here are some examples: シャイ shy, クール cool, チープ cheap, プレーン plain, スパイシー spicy, カラフルcolorful,キュート cute.
How are they used? Well, it depends. Adjectives like シャイ shy and カラフル colorful can be used whenever you want to refer to a shy person or a colorful thing. On the other hand, there are English adjectives which are only used in specific contexts. For example, プレーン plain is used to describe food (i.e. plain bagel, plain yogurt) or clothes.
Then there are even some adjectives which are used differently from how they are used in English. One example is クール cool. It's used to mean something like "poker-faced". Another example is ナイーブ naive (this is of French origin but that's okay!). It means "sensitive".(...to be continued to the next post) -
You know there are i-adjectives and na-adjectives in Japanese, but all adjectives of foreign origin should be regarded as na-adjectives. Okay, that's easy!
So you'd say:
たなかさんはシャイなひとです。Tanaka san wa shai na hito desu.
Mr. Tanaka is a shy person.
たなかさんはシャイです。Tanaka san wa shai desu.
Mr. Tanaka is shy.
やまださんはシャイではありません。Yamada san wa shai de wa arimasen.
Mr. Yamada is not shy.
