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Teach Us, Teacher

Adjective + SÔ (Lesson 17)

As in OMOSHIROSÔ (It seems interesting), if you add SÔ after an adjective, you can talk about what you think or guess, after you look at or listen to something.

In Lesson 13, we said we have two kinds of adjectives in Japanese. One kind is called I-adjectives. They end with I, like OMOSHIROI (interesting) and ISOGASHII (busy). The other kind is NA adjectives. They take NA after them when they come before nouns that they modify. HIMA (free or having nothing to do) is among them.

When you add SÔ, an expression for guessing, to I-adjectives, you change I to SÔ. For example, ISOGASHII (busy), becomes ISOGASHISÔ (seem to be busy).

For NA-adjectives, you just add SÔ to them. For example, HIMA (free) becomes HIMASÔ (seem to be free, seem to have nothing to do).
Now, I will explain about how to turn SÔ into the negative form. In the case of I-adjectives, you change I to KU NASASÔ. For example, ISOGASHII (busy) becomes ISOGASHIKU NASASÔ (don't seem busy).

As for NA-adjectives, you put DEWA NASASÔ after the adjectives. For example, HIMA (free) becomes HIMA DEWA NASASÔ (don't seem free).
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