汚い
きたない
hepburn kitanai
dirty, messy
Part of speech · i-adjective
Pattern visualization
no decomposition available
Examples
- 部屋が汚いので掃除します。My room is dirty, so I will clean it.
- 汚い言葉を使ってはいけません。You shouldn't use foul language.
Collocations
汚い (kitanai, dirty / foul)きれい (kirei, clean / pretty — antonym)汚れる (yogoreru, get dirty)掃除 (souji, cleaning)汚い言葉 (kitanai kotoba, foul language)
Mnemonic
Kitanai (汚い) is an i-adjective — "dirty / messy" + the moral extension "vulgar / foul." Antonym kirei (きれい, na-adjective) — clean and pretty merged. Verbs from the same 汚 root: yogoreru (get dirty, intransitive) and yogosu (make dirty, transitive). Metaphor extension: kitanai kotoba (foul language), kitanai te (cunning / underhanded means — te is "hand" but also "means"). Korean "deoreopda / jijibun-hada / gyo-hwal-hada" parallels. Trap: kirei looks like an i-adjective but is na-adjective — kirei na heya (a pretty room) — a notorious learner pitfall.
Quick check
Why kirei is a learner pitfall?