nominalizer N3 common casualpolitewritten
〜み — -ness (quality nominalizing suffix)
〜み ・ み
Meaning
- -ness — turns an adjective into a noun for the felt quality or its nuance (深い → 深み 'depth')
Key sentence
このスープには深みがある。
This soup has depth.
Formation
| Attaches to | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| い-adjective / な-adjective stem + み | Aい → Aみ (重い→重み) | 痛み (pain), 甘み (sweetness) |
Examples
経験から来る重みのある言葉だ。
Those are weighty words that come from experience.
彼の絵には独特の温かみがある。
His paintings have a distinctive warmth.
When you can't use it
- 〜み is NOT productive — it forms a fixed set of words (重み, 深み, 痛み, 甘み, 強み, 弱み, 温かみ). You can't coin 〜み from just any adjective the way you can with 〜さ.
Easily confused with
Notes
- Many 〜み nouns are lexicalized with their own meaning: 楽しみ ('a pleasure / something to look forward to'), 強み・弱み ('strong/weak point').
See 〜み in real sentences
Jengo shows 〜み the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled with reference to A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.