I am soooo confused! I read through the lesson and thought that I understood, but when I took the review, I failed. Here is a photo of the い adjective question:
Now I thought I understood and now I need a better explanation or something?
I might be wrong, but I don’t think translation is a particularly helpful device here. It’s probably easier to think about it morphologically:
So, just to be clear:
The lessons related them as い adjectives describing nouns and な adjectives doing the same but being adjectives that can also be nouns and using な to modify them. So do I just need to throw that understanding out the window? Is there a better, more concrete way to describe them or is it just memorizing?
So do I just need to throw that understanding out the window?
Knowing that な-adjectives are originally nouns might help to understand later grammar rules down the road. But that’s an etymological point, not a device to identify them as such. We typically can’t expect to translate a particular adjective to English, check if it can function as a noun in English and correctly conclude whether it is a な or an い-adjective from this.
Is there a better, more concrete way to describe them or is it just memorizing?
Maybe by tracing them down etymologically or if you know their kanji representation already. But just memorising is the most practical I would say. To quote from the lesson:
Unfortunately there is no rule for distinguishing which words ending in い are not い-Adjectives, but thankfully, there are not very many of them, so it won’t be long before you become familiar with them.
so-called い adjectives are true adjectives. They always end with an い and are “conjugating”, meaning they change form depending on how they are used and can end a sentence by themselves. You will never end a sentence with い adjective + だ
there are a handful of traps which are nouns / な adjectives which end with an い, such as きれい in the review above or something like 幸い. A lot of the time though these are obviously not い adjectives when you see the kanji version, for example 綺麗（きれい） though in the case of 幸い you just have to memorize that it is a noun
I am learning Kanji through Wanikani, so that might help with some things, but there are so many common words that people spell out than use the kanji for that I need watch out for. I appreciate the input from everyone. I guess I need to just learn through practice, practice, practice.
This is true, but one important thing to bear in mind is that when translating something to or from English, its word type can change. A common example of this is 好き, which is often translated as ‘to like’ , because that is the closest translation that works well in an English sentence. In Japanese it is a noun (or a な-adjective, which are nouns) however.
In your example question, 楽しい can maybe more accurately be translated as ‘enjoyable’, to show that it is an adjective in Japanese, and not a noun. I don’t think there is an equivalent word for きれい in the English language that is also a noun, so it is translated as an adjective. This does not change the fact that it is a noun in Japanese, and is conjugated as such.
The world clean in English can be used as a noun to refer to “an occasion when you clean something”, for example “Giving the house a clean”, which is pretty much the same way you would use 綺麗 in Japanese.
Just wondering, why 好き it translated as ‘to like’ if it is a noun? Though I don’t know how ‘like’ can be a noun? Interesting… Also, if 楽しい is adjective form of ‘fun’, then what would be the noun form? Is it a different word altogether?
楽しみ is a noun version. 好き (noun/na adjective) is more like something wanted/desirable its just how the language expresses liking something バナナが好き、banana’s are likable=i like bananas. im sure someone else can give a better answer.
English and Japanese words and grammar or not equivalent even in the most basic expressions - perhaps the only honest equivalents are simple nouns like “apple” but even then many of these kind of nouns are used slightly differently or culturally invoke a different meaning/image so are not as close as one might hope.
The English word “like” cannot be a noun in the way that 好き is a “noun” (adjectival noun, really - it is actually misleading to think of it as a noun, honestly, but it is something many people do to get a foothold since many grammatical rules it follows are similar to nouns; it is a 形容動詞 and not a 名詞). Translations are not transliterations and even transliterations are flawed.
At the beginning you are in the impossible position of needing to not think in terms of English (or some other non-Japanese language) however it is the only framework you have. Luckily the questons you have are super common and if you google this kind of thing there are many threads of people who have gone through the same thing. Good luck.
I am starting to understand that! I keep thinking of terms in how it relates to my own language, and thus my own understanding. I am starting to see that I can’t do that. Haha. I am having the hardest time with wa and ga particles because in English the subject and topic are the same thing so it is hard to differentiate them. There was a really helpful video on Youtube that was included as a resource. STILL, I think it is going to take me some serious time! My English mind has to stop thinking in English! Some things cannot be translated exactly! It’s funny how difficult it is for me to understand it, when they say my language is difficult! It just shows how growing up with something makes the difference!
The more you’re exposed to は and が in context, the more clear it will become! Don’t stress too much over it haha, It will just take time. I really started to understand them when I just gave up trying to scrutinize them so closely.
Yep, it’s a misconception to think that na-adjectives are inherently nouns. It’s true that a ton of them can function as both parts of speech, but this is not always the case.
Consider 静か、大切、きれい、the general consensus is that these are strictly na-adjectives and are not treated as nouns (although you may come across phrases like きれいがいい or 静かがいい but I think this is more like treating those adjectives as thoughts or something and not necessarily as nouns, e.g.家は静かがいい・「家は静か」がいい)
Sort of similarly, adjectives like 大きな and 小さな are not technically considered na-adjs, but rather pre-noun adjectivals (連体詞) despite functioning the same as na-adjs in the attributive sense.
I also got confused with something like this in a grammar lesson-嫌い(きらい) disliked, being a na adjective even though it ends with an い that isnt included in the kanji, so I searched it up and its because 嫌い comes from a verb 嫌う, to hate. So if the adjectives/nouns come from verbs they are na adjectives, even if they end with い. Im not sure how correct i am or if that makes sense so feel free to correct me haha
Also i think maybe you read the question wrong? It ask which one isn’t a い adjective aka which one is a na adjective, so 楽しい is an い adjective.
I typed that 楽しい was not an い adjective, so I got it wrong.
Oh i see did you think it was a na adjective? Its too many negatives for my brain to keep up i got confused lmao (like the なくてはならない form i always get so confused) 
