Japanese i-adjective

kurai — dark 暗い

Explore the principal positive, negative, past, non-past and conditional forms of this Japanese adjective.

How i-adjectives conjugate

The final changes to create negative, past and connecting forms. The adjective itself carries this grammatical information, so a separate verb is not required in the plain forms.

Conjugation table

The English glosses are approximate; the natural translation depends on the surrounding sentence.

Form Style Positive Negative
Present (non-past) Plain is dark kurai 暗い is not dark kurakunai 暗くない
Polite kurai desu 暗いです kurakunai desu 暗くないです
Past Plain was dark kurakatta 暗かった was not dark kurakunakatta 暗くなかった
Polite kurakatta desu 暗かったです kurakunakatta desu 暗くなかったです
Presumptive Plain will probably be dark kurai darō 暗いだろう kurakunai darō 暗くないだろう
Polite kurai deshō 暗いでしょう kurakunai deshō 暗くないでしょう
Conditional Standard if it is dark kurakereba 暗ければ if it is not dark kurakunakereba 暗くなければ
Connecting form Standard kurakute 暗くて kurakunakute 暗くなくて

These conjugations are generated automatically and are intended as a learning guide. Check the natural usage in context when accuracy is important.