日本語の道

Near the beginning of studying Japanese I learnt 好き（すき） as a 「な」 adjective – 好きな. This seemed confusing enough as it was but with my poor grammar ability I just accepted it as it was taught.

Then while talking to someone about ‘being liked’ in English, I realised I couldn’t say the same in Japanese. My calligraphy teacher said, 「好かれている」. What about 嫌い（きらい） I enquired, to which the reply was 「嫌われている」. ‘So they are verbs?’ I say. Yes, 好く（すく） and 嫌う（きらう）.

I wondered why I hadn’t learnt this from any of my books until now. Am I the only one who thinks this is confusing?