Examples and questions give conflicting advice about 白 vs 白い

Bunpro
#1

I debated whether this should be in the “Japanese” or “Bunpro” forum. Admittedly my Japanese knowledge is quite small. But I think my issue here might be with Bunpro.

Today I received a question that was essentially:

The dog is white

… 犬は _____ だ

I tried to answer しろ, though I figured both しろ and しろい might be acceptable. As I understand it, the former is a noun and the latter is an adjective. In this sentence, I feel like either thing works.

“He is happy.”
“He is a man.”

The object in such a sentence seems to be able to be either noun or adjective.

But, I was marked wrong for my しろ answer and told that しろい was the only answer (“no alts”).

Here’s where it gets really wild though. Look at the first example given for 白:

shiro
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Should the question allow both answers?

#2

In this case 白い doesn’t fit, because you cannot have だ after i-adjectives (だ (JLPT N5) | Bunpro). Examples given for 白い seem to be consistent with this.

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#3

Ah, good catch thank you! It was a Japanese issue after all. :blush:

#4

Actually, wait. I think I just got confused in my response above. I think my issue was that the app required the i-adjective version and rejected the noun version. I wish I’d taken a screenshot or could find a way to see past reviews. Though I did find a note I scribbled down which confirms my recollection.

You did still teach me something new: both versions are not acceptable here. But if I’m remembering the Q correctly, then this makes the bug even worse than I thought, since it disallows the correct one and only allows an incorrect one.

#5

Here we go. I was able to trigger the question again by starting a single-word cram session. My memory was slightly off. The verb allows either answer I guess; so the bit about the i-adjective is irrelevant, but still something I need to remember. But I do think the noun answer should be allowed. (And the actual review didn’t give me the hint that this cram session is, so it was extra surprising to be marked wrong instantly).

shiroi
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#6

Generally when an answer gives a yellow hint on Bunpro, it means that it’s acceptable but the sentence was trying to test something else.
That’s not a iron-clad rule though, and yellow hint can also mean that it’s wrong but pretty close. Which I personally think should be standardized one way or another.

I’d expect that you get the same hints for the same answers in both reviews and cram. Possible bug?

#7

I think these sentences are just trying to emphasize that it is possible to have an い adjective before です (at least, colloquially/in modern days), but it’s not possible to have い adjectives prior to だ. I wouldn’t dwell on it too much.

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