Using Nikui

“He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.” - Confucius

The trick to using にくい (as well as やすい, which you’ll be learning next) is to think of the v.stem+nikui pattern as if it were an i-adjective (because it is!). A verb, like たべます, goes from “to eat” to “difficult/hard to eat.” The phrase “difficult to eat” (たべにくい) should be thought of as a single entity, and be treated the same way you would an i-adjective. If you think back to your noun/i-adjective lessons, I think you’ll remember the pattern AはBです. Basically, that’s what you’ll be doing here (at least for right now, to keep things fairly simple).

Let’s take a look at something using the AはB pattern.

ステーキ　は　たべにくい　です
Steak (A) is difficult to eat (B)

ビール　は　のみにくい　です
Beer (A) is difficult to drink (B)

See how that works? If we think of v.stem+nikui as an i-adjective and a single entity, it really simplifies things and makes it a lot easier to form longer, more complicated sentences. It’s kind of like what we’re doing with kanji and radicals. Batch things together so that you have fewer bits and pieces to work with, making your job a lot easier (without losing anything in the process).

So now it’s your turn. I’m going to give you a few situations and slowly up the complexity. Just follow the directions on these examples to practice, and then you’ll get a worksheet.

この　ほん　は　＿＿＿＿＿　This book is difficult to read →

テレビ　は　＿＿＿＿＿　The TV is hard to see →

えいご　は　＿＿＿＿＿　English is hard to teach →

That wasn’t too bad, right? For now, we’re going to keep things simple (I’ll show you a couple other ways to use にくい in a few pages). I’ve created a worksheet that will help you to use にくい more on your own (creating your own sentences) and get you ready for the next part, covering the opposite of にくい (やすい).

にくい Practice Sheet

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