![]() ![]() ( Literally: Do you think I will develop a fever?) ( Literally: Do you think I have a cold?) 3 To express this sort of speculation when speaking to someone in a polite manner, you can instead use 〜ですかね or 〜ますかね, or the more formal 〜でしょうか(ね). ![]() In a way, 〜かな is sort of like asking yourself a question, and thus it's considered an informal expression.Īgain, in this example, 〜かな indicates that even though you're afraid of getting a fever, you are still unsure and wondering about it.ĭue to its nature, 〜かな lacks the polite form. For instance, if you wonder you may develop a fever, you could say: You can also attach かな to a longer sentence. Here, 〜かな expresses that while you think you might have a cold, you are still unsure and are wondering about it. 〜かな is the equivalent of the English phrase "I wonder…" It's often used with a notion or a hypothetical scenario that has come to mind, and implies that you should take it with a pinch of salt.įor example, if you sneeze and you wonder if you have a cold, you can stick 〜かな onto 風邪 (cold) and say: To express your feeling of uncertainty, you can use 〜 かな. To start, let's introduce expressions for conveying the lowest level of certainty. Also, if you feel like this table is missing some other words you already know, such as 多分 (perhaps) or きっと (surely), rest assured that I'll be covering them in this article as well, but in a separate section at the bottom! Expressions For Conveying a Low Level of Certainty "Certain" and "uncertain" should be pretty self-explanatory, but what do I mean by "subjective" or "objective"? Basically, the more "subjective" a term is, the more heavily it's based on your own assumptions and intuition, whereas more "objective" terms rely a bit more on outside information or past experiences in conjunction with your own thoughts.ĭon't worry if you aren't familiar with these exact expressions yet, though - we're going to go over them one by one. To help your understanding, here's a chart to show you a rough idea of the certainty level and how subjectivity or objectivity each term sounds: The certainty of the judgment, however, can be different depending on how much information the speaker knows, and how much they rely on it to make judgments, as well as whether or not they reached their assumption subjectively or objectively. All of these expressions are for "judgments" made in light of the available information. A Big Picture Look at Degree of Certainty WordsĪs mentioned in the introduction, there are plenty of ways to convey your assumptions in Japanese. Some expressions might not be appropriate in formal writing, such as academic writing, as formal writing tends to require a rigid and assertive style in general. Notes: This article concentrates more on the subtleties of each term, particularly in ordinary speaking or writing. If you need to brush up, have a look at our Ultimate Hiragana Guide and Ultimate Katakana Guide. Prerequisites: This article assumes you already know hiragana and katakana.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |