So what are antonyms again? Antonyms are very important in any language in order to explain opposites, such as “cold” and “hot”, or “big” and “small”. They usually explain something which we see with our eyes or feel from a touch. Antonyms in Japanese are called hantaigo (反対語) and taigigo (対義語). These act the same as English antonyms but in Japanese.
Here is some helpful instruction on how to remember these words. The first step that you will want to do is go through the list below. Determining the level of your Japanese, this may be hard for some, and this may be easy for some. A recommendation is to print out the list below so that you can highlight and take notes if you want to.
The next step would be to do some highlighting. Highlight the words that you want to study and focus on remembering. After highlighting, copy them on to flashcards. It may be tedious but having one side with Japanese, reading, and the meaning of the word is helpful.
In addition, having the antonym Japanese, reading, and meaning on the other is also helpful as well. The main point is to create associations between the words. If flashcards are not available, copy and paste the list. Once printed, fold it in the middle and see if you can remember a certain antonym pair.
The final step is to look at the ones that you do not know. It is important that you continue to look at the list as often as possible, to find and learn new words. By doing so, continue to then learn the antonym of that word, which the set. It will work best when you understand and know one side of the antonym pair. The important key to learning the antonyms is that it takes time and that learning one side first and then learning the other is the best instead of learning both at the same time.
So this is the list and good luck studying! As previously stated, this list is a little hard and is more advanced. If you are having issues reading and or comprehending the Japanese, use a Japanese/English dictionary to see how to read or what the definition of words you have trouble understanding. Once again good luck and happy studying!
