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I meet various sentences with adjectives, which version is correct?

> この猫{ねこ}は黒{くろ}です。 (...kuro desu)
>
> この猫は黒いです。
>
> この猫は黒い。

Thanks a lot!
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2017-05-21T13:48:00.587
47624
2019-06-25T09:15:47.710
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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question
adjectives
Using adjectives in simple sentence (Need です and い-form?)
>   1. この猫は黒です。
>   2. この猫は黒いです。
>   3. この猫は黒い。
>

If you want to say "this is a black cat", sentence 2 and 3 are possible
answers, and the sentence 2 sounds polite.

By the way, the sentence 1 also makes sense, but it has another interpretation
that "the name of this cat is _kuro_ ".  
If you want to avoid this kind of mis-interpretation, you could say like
この猫は黒色です, but this expression sounds a little bit academic or high-flown, so I
would not recommend you to use it in daily conversations.
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2017-05-21T14:41:55.440
47625
2017-05-21T14:52:16.550
2017-05-21T14:52:16.550
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> which version is correct?  
>  この猫は黒です.  
>  この猫は黒いです.  
>  この猫は黒い.

All three are grammatically correct.  
The 黒 in the 1st sentence is a noun, and the 2nd and 3rd are using an
i-adjective 黒い. The です in the 2nd sentence is a polite suffix.

> I meet various sentences with adjectives,

We have two kinds of adjectives, i-adjectives and na-adjectives, which
basically function as a predicate this way:

> この猫は **かわいい** 。-- plain form  
>  この猫は **かわいいです** 。-- polite form  
>  (かわいい = i-adjective)  
>  この花は **きれいだ** 。-- plain form  
>  この花は **きれいです** 。-- polite form  
>  (きれい = na-adjective)

* * *

Note that Japanese words for colors, such as 黒, 赤, 緑, 紫, 黄色 etc. are nouns and
can be followed by the copula だ / です, like this:

> この猫は **黒です** 。-- polite form  
>  この猫は **黒だ** 。-- plain form

The 6 colors 黒, 白, 赤, 青, 茶色, 黄色 have i-adjective alternatives 黒い, 白い, 赤い, 青い,
茶色い, 黄色い, which can be used this way:

> この猫は **黒いです** 。-- polite form  
>  この猫は **黒い** 。-- plain form

incorrect: ×「緑い(です)」 ×「灰色い(です)」

* * *

As a side note: Only a few words can fit in both 「～～だ/です」 and 「～～い(です)」:

> やわらかだ/やわらかい  
>  あたたかだ/あたたかい  
>  [真]{ま}っ[白]{しろ}だ/真っ白い  
>  [真]{ま}っ[黒]{くろ}だ/真っ黒い  
>  四角だ/四角い  
>  丸だ*/丸い (*丸 is a noun, not a na-adjective, so you can't say 丸な~~.)

For example, you can say:

> このパンは **やわらかいです** 。このパンは **やわらかい** 。(やわらかい = i-adjective)  
>  このパンは **やわらかです** 。このパンは **やわらかだ** 。(やわらか = na-adjective)

For more on this topic, see: [i-adjectives used as na-adjectives: is there a
difference? (e.g. 大きい versus
大きな)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1853/9831)
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2017-05-22T05:31:09.163
47647
2017-05-22T15:05:22.607
2017-05-22T15:05:22.607
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answer