悲しい

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 悲しい, read かなしい, joins the sadness stem 悲し with the i-adjective ending い.
• Basic usage: It expresses sadness predicatively in 別れは悲しい or modifies a noun in 悲しい知らせ.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• Forms and inflection
  • The past form is 悲しかった and the negative 悲しくない; it can modify the character of news or events as well as describe a person's feeling.