い-Adjective (predicate)
Examples
かわいい
新しい
寒い
Hi there, new Japanese learner here. I just came across this sentence in the N5 grammar section. このお風呂が熱い
When I was at a sento in Kyoto last month, I was sitting in the cold bath for a minute and asked a couple locals in the adjacent bath, " その水は熱いですか？
Sono mizu wa atsui desu ka?
They chuckled and replied, 温かい!
So my question is really, which sounds more natural, atsui desu, atatakai desu, or simply, attakai?
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In this context, 熱い while correct in the hot nuance, to japanese ears it’ll sound as if you were asking something to “is the water scalding hot?”, the reply of 温かい is more along the lines of “it’s pleasantly warm!”
It’s a minor thing, and rather than one sounding more natural over the other, it’s really about what they’re communicating.
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Thank you!
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