Grammar › Skill › 上手・下手
上手・下手
How Japanese says "good at" and "bad at". Two な-adjectives — 上手 (skilled) and 下手 (unskilled) — and the skill itself takes が, not を.
The short version
For a noun skill: Nが上手 ("good at N") / Nが下手 ("bad at N"). For an action, first turn the verb into a noun with の: Vのが上手 / Vのが下手. Both are な-adjectives, so add です politely and な before a noun.
料理が上手 — good at cooking · noun + が
歌うのが下手 — bad at singing · verb + の + が
が上手 — good at something
The skill is marked with が (the same が you meet with 好き and できる). 上手 also lives inside compounds like 話し上手 ("a good talker").
日本語が上手になります。
Your Japanese will get good. (日本語が上手 + になる = "become good at Japanese")
喋り上手だよね。
You're a good talker, aren't you. (喋り上手 — praising someone else, compound form)
が下手 — bad at something
Its opposite, 下手, works the same way. Because it's a plain "you're bad at that", it lands softest about yourself or in gentle self-deprecation.
妹は下手なんですよね。
My little sister's not good at it. (下手 + なんです)
Watch out
🗣 得意・苦手 — the "feelings" pair. Alongside 上手/下手 (which judge ability) sit 得意 ("my strong suit") and 苦手 ("not my thing"), which describe how you feel about a skill — a touch humbler and more personal. Same が: 数学が苦手 ("I'm weak at math").
Don't call your own skills 上手. Praising yourself with 上手 sounds boastful. For your own abilities, prefer 得意 ("my strong suit") or a modest できる; save 上手 for complimenting others. 下手, being self-critical, is fine about yourself.
Next: 〜すぎる — too much → · 〜が好き — like → · All grammar
Free on Wakatta — learn Japanese by listening. Every example above is a real line from a Japanese podcast, timestamped so you can hear it.