As I was driving to work this morning, I noticed something that I don’t think I’ve seen pointed out anywhere before. At least, if it was pointed out, I didn’t notice it.

To negate an i-adjective in Japanese, you drop the い and replace it with くない. To turn an i-adjective into an adverb, drop the い and replace it with く. You can use this adverb to modify a verb, like, say, ある (to be/exist for inanimate objects). ある is somewhat irregular, though, in that the negative of it is simply ない. Hey, isn’t that the same thing?

I’m sure this is a well known, obvious thing, probably taught in Japanese elementary schools, but I thought I’d point it out as, like I said above, I haven’t seen it pointed out anywhere in any of the guides to Japanese that I’ve looked at so far, and it seems like a neat mnemonic for remembering one or the other of these constructions.