So I lately notice that many nouns are being used as adjectives, but I don’t understand when and what nouns it is appropriate to turn into adjectives.For example:
1. I saw that in order to say “the tallest” in japanese, they say “一ばん上”. As far as I know, 一ばん must be followed by adjectives, so why is it 一ばん上? (instead of, for example, 一ばんたかい?)
2. Another example is that even tho びょうき is a noun meaning “illness”, it can be used as “びょうきの人” and be conjucated as a な-adjective!
Is it enough putting の after a noun to turn it into an adjective? And can it be done with all nouns?
Thank you all in advance to help me clear this out:))
2 comments
The thing is, there are no adjectives in Japanese. They are nouns. Check out the YouTube channel Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly.
There are no adjectives in Japanese. There are adjectival verbs (conveniently but inaccurately called “i-adjectives”) and adjectival nouns (conveniently but inaccurately called “na-adjectives”).
Adjectival nouns behave almost exactly the same as normal nouns, except that normal nouns take の instead of な when modifying a noun. Otherwise, they are largely interchangeable.
[This page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_equivalents_of_adjectives) has a lot of good information about Japanese “adjectives”.