Learn when to use -SOU DA or -YOU DA
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| Hi everybody! Hiroko here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Japanese questions. |
| The question for this lesson is...When expressing my conjecture or making a guess based on appearance, should I use そうだ(-sō da) or ようだ (-yō da)? |
| When you want to express conjecture or make a guess based on appearance, you may wonder whether to use そうだ (-sō da) or ようだ (-yō da), because you often hear Japanese people use both. This lesson will cover how to use そうだ (-sō da) and ようだ (-yō da) when expressing states or conditions with adjectives. |
| In many cases, you can use either. However, your answer will depend on two things. One, whether your guess is based on visual information only, or two, whether you have any additional information to interpret. |
| If you make a guess based on visual information only, you use そうだ (-sō da). If you judge not only based on the visual information but also additional information or reasoning, you use ようだ (-yō da.) So, basically, when you use ようだ (-yō da.), the certainty level is higher than when you use そうだ (-sō da). |
| Let’s go through some examples so you can learn how to use そうだ (-sō da) and ようだ (-yō da) correctly. |
| Here’s the first case, where you guess based on visual information only. |
| Let’s say you go looking for your teacher, Ms. Yamada, and you see she’s busy talking with other teachers. In this case, you guess that she is busy based on visual information. So you can use そうだ (-sō da) like this-- |
| 先生は、忙しそうだ。(Sensei wa, isogashi sō da.) |
| The sentence would naturally translate as, “The teacher seems busy.” |
| The next is the second case where you can get more information to judge the situation, in addition to the visual information. |
| Let’s use the same situation again. This time, though, you saw that she was busy, but you also tried to call her name and received no response. In this case, you received more information; you’re not getting a response from her, in addition to the visual information, so you judge that she’s busy. In this case you would say, 先生は、忙しいようだ。(Sensei wa isogashii yō da.). “The teacher must be busy.” |
| How was this lesson? Does that make more sense now? |
| Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them! |
| またね！(mata ne!) See you! |
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