嫌い (きらい) - Grammar Discussion

dislike, not fond of

Structure

  • Noun + が + 嫌い
  • 嫌い + な + Noun

View on Bunpro

:warning: While きらい ends in an い, it is a な-adjective

[大嫌い(だいきらい) can be used to express hate]

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Hey! I just reviewed “Dislike/kirai” and this sentence popped up

パイナップルがきらい?

I just wanted to know why there is no か at the end, since it seems to be a question.

Thank you!

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@MatzBlanc Hey! Just like in English, you can make a Japanese sentence a question with a rising intonation at the end. So, this sentence would be pronounced: パイナップル(が)きらい:arrow_heading_up:? Just to note, you can certainly add ですか to make the sentence more polite or add the explanatory at the end (きらいなの?). Adding just か to きらい, while grammatically correct, will come off as rude in many situations (don’t use it with your superiors!). Cheers!

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Thanks!

That helps a lot!

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I do not understand why it is 「パイナップルが きらい?」 instead of 「パイナップルが きらいだ?」. Since きれい is a な-adjective, I was expecting a だ at the end of the sentence. Why is it omitted?

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Unless I’m missing something, it’s simply omitted because native speakers often omit it when speaking casually. Technically, it’s ungrammatical but everybody does it so we have to be aware of it.

だ is often omitted in casual spoken and written Japanese because it’s super clear from the context.

If I ask someone “大丈夫?” (Okay?), I am obviously asking if they are OK (which would be “大丈夫だ?”).
There is nothing else that I could be asking so I might as well drop the だ.

We do the same in English when we ask “you okay?” There’s no way that we could be asking anything but “are you okay?” :wink:

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It’s what I was expecting but I wasn’t really sure about it. Thanks for making it clear!

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No problem! By the way, for anyone who’s interested:

I was always puzzled by 嫌い because it looks like an い adjective but is actually a noun (“な adjective”, adjectival noun).

Only recently did I discover that there’s a verb spelled 嫌う【きらう】 that means “to dislike, to hate”! So 嫌い is spelled like that because it’s the noun version of 嫌う! :exploding_head: (Just like 遊ぶ【あそぶ】play (Verb)→遊び play, playing (Noun))

This might seem obvious to you but it was a revelation to me so I’m posting it in hopes of helping others.

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Also, 好き is the noun version of 好く

This is what happens when you teach people that random words are adjectives because they translate to adjectives in English…

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Yes! That’s exactly what happens! :pensive: Wish they wouldn’t do that…

I keep seeing explanations for omitting such basic stuff in educational material that look something like this: “well, the important thing is to get you speaking; you’ll learn those details at some point, so just memorize it for now.”

But it’s not that simple! I can memorize it alright, but doing so leaves me with a broken understanding of how the damn language works in the first place. It’s not like it’d take ages to explain. A couple of sentences would suffice. :woman_shrugging:

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Hi, I just got the following sentence:

彼は漢字が きらいだ けど、文法が好き

Apparently だ is required after 嫌い in some cases, but it’s unclear when. The grammar point makes no mention of だ AFAICT. Here’s all the info I see:

Am I missing something? If not, would it be possible to add to the grammar point something about だ?

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@ilyakamens Hi! The rule more applies to how けど interacts with all な-adjectives, not just きらい. The hint that you should have gotten is “Nouns/な-adjectives need something before が or けど.” If you follow the Bunpro order, the けど grammar point appears just before the きらい grammar point and outlines that だ is required after a noun/な-adjective and before けど. While there are some edge cases where you can separate きらい and けど with a comma or even find them uttered together in casual speech, it is best practice to use だ after a な-adjective and before けど. Cheers!

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Ah. I must have forgotten. Thank you for the through explanation!

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Isn’t Kirai closer to hate, as opposed to amari suki?

I was taught not to say Kirai in this situation unless I felt very strongly about it, and even then only if I was with friends. In a business situation it may come off too heated or accidentally comedic, yes?

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Hi,

Regarding this sentence:

" エレンのお母さんが作る朝ごはんが大嫌い"

Why is the particle が used twice here? Is it possible to change the first instance to の.

Thank you!

The first が is part of a subclause that describes the breakfast, and the second が is used for the main thought of the sentence. “作る” isn’t a noun, so it wouldn’t make sense to use “の” here.

It’s not that it’s impossible to change お母さんが作る朝ごはん to お母さんの作る朝ごはん, since が to の substitution in subordinate clauses is pretty standard.
But now you’d end up with two の in a row, and is it really any prettier than two が?

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Thanks for the explanation :pray:t2:.

Ah I get it. Thanks for clearing it up :+1:t2:.