Japanese Adjectives and Copula (to be)

This site has been very useful for some basics to go over again.

On adjectives: http://www.japaneseprofessor.com/lessons/beginning/japanese-adjectives/
On the copula, desu: http://www.japaneseprofessor.com/lessons/beginning/the-copula-desu/

Notes on interesting points:


Copula -
- verbs are pretty much past and non-past, as there is really little distinction made between now and the future in Japanese. If the time period (now, in a week) isn't specified, it must be inferred.
- "As a side note, desu is believed to be a contraction of "de gozaimasu", which is now mainly used in keigo (honorific speech). At some point, the negative forms of gozaimasu were also replaced by the negative forms of arimasu."
- the topic of a sentence is often implied rather than stated.

And some more links on copula information:
http://www.japaneseprofessor.com/reference/grammar/conjugations-of-the-japanese-copula/