Easy & Hard: ～やすい & ～にくい

Nominalising verbs already gives us one way to say that something is easy or hard to do.

日本語にほんごで新聞しんぶんを読よむのが難むずかしいです。

It’s difficult to read a newspaper in Japanese.

スイカカードがあれば日本にほんで電車でんしゃに乗のるのが簡単かんたんです。

If you have a Suica card getting on the train in Japan is easy.

Another way to form these expressions is to use the following structures:

【Verb: Stem】やすい

【Verb: Stem】にくい

Once in this form the word acts and conjugates like i-adjectives.

働はたらきやすい職場環境しょくばかんきょう。

An easy work environment.

わかりやすく説明せつめいしてください。

Please explain it to me in a way that’s easy to understand.

彼女かのじょが友達ともだちと一緒いっしょうにいて、話はなし掛かけにくかったよ。

She was with her friends so it was hard to strike up a conversation.

The meaning and nuance of both the nominalized form and the above structures is almost identical; however, using the verb stem with やすい or にくい is slightly more casual and perhaps more natural when the topic is less than serious.

The ～やすい and ～にくい structures are also used when the outcome isn’t necessarily something that you intended.

間違まちがえやすいです。

Easy to make a mistake.

間違まちがえるのが簡単かんたんです。

Making a mistake is easy.

The former sentence is more natural as clearly you don’t intend to make a mistake.

It is worth mentioning that saying something is difficult by nominalizing the verb in Japanese is very often used to mean that you cannot do something that has been requested of you. Culturally speaking, saying so directly might be considered a little too direct so instead the person says it is difficult and assumes the real meaning is implied. This euphemistic usage does not usually apply to ～にくい.

すみません。領収書りょうしゅうしょがなければ返金へんきんするのは難むずかしいですが。

My apologies. We cannot issue a refund without a receipt.

Note the use of the が particle at the end of the sentence to soften the refusal.