べきMust, Should , Ought to

Most Recent Replies (25 in total)

• 

  seanblue

  must do
  should do

  Structure

  • Verb + べき

  View on Bunpro

• 

  seanblue

  @mrnoone For this grammar, can you update the reviews so that you have to input the whole answer, including the verb?

  For example:

  失敗したら早めに報告す____だ。隠すと余計に大変なことになる。

  It was a little odd that this sentence included the す and you only had to fill in べき. I think it would be better to have to input すべき. If you specifically wanted to check that we know the shortened version すべき then perhaps you can just flag and not accept するべき if it’s given as an answer.

• 

  mrnoone

  I will change it in few hours

• 

  Pushindawood

  @seanblue I have updated the reviews to require the whole answer, including the verb. Cheers!

• 

  chrischriskurisu

  I see that you want “must”, and so I gravitate immediately towards. “~なくちゃいけない”.
  I understand that ~べき can mean must, as in “it’s a social obligation, and while it’s technically a ‘should’, it’s really a ‘must’”.
  Would it be possible to program this one to give a gentle “non-wrong” answer to ~なくちゃいけない, nudging the user towards べき？

  Otherwise, I feel like at this point I’m remembering that “Bunpro wants this particular example sentence to use 〜べき” rather than learning applicable rules about Japanese.

• 

  mrnoone

  Of course I will add it to my daily to do list. Remember however that 〇〇いけない are stronger than べき。

• 

  chrischriskurisu

  Thank you so much for your consideration, and for your tip.

• 

  mrnoone

  I changed all translations to “should” and added 〇〇いけない/ならない answers with notifications.

  Of course only to questions where those can be used. When input is followed by だ (but です can follow it), or where there is no verb to modify - it cannot be used in the first place.

• 

  CrisH

  One of the examples includes this sentence:
  リーダーなんだから。
  What is the な doing in this case? I wouldn’t have expected のだ because it sounds off [Edit: Shortly after I said this I came across it in an example, so never mind that part], but I might have expected んだ alone. The な makes it sound like a question to me, but presumably it doesn’t to a native speaker?

• 

  nekoyama

  It’s just doing the usual harmless copula things before the の/ん.
  This structure is covered in んです.
  The sentence is not trying to say “it’s the leader’s!” (リーダーのだ).

• 

  CrisH

  Thanks. So the な completely changes the meaning, then - it’s not purely grammatical?

  Edit: Just had it in my reviews again and it made me think. So, presumably the な makes it literally “It is the leader” instead of “It is of the leader”, and the context makes that “You are the leader”. Is that right?

• 

  rinchan93

  What is the difference between…

  1・知っておくべき <—- this one is used in an example sentence here on Bunpro

  2・知ってるべき

  3・知るべき

  I tried looking the others up but I couldn’t find much.
  I’m not even sure if 2 and 3 are even grammatically correct

  Thanks for the help

• 

  matt_in_mito

  The suffix ～ておく gives the impression that the verb is in preparation for something, so your first example is ‘~should [prepare by] knowing ~’.
  Fun fact: you can abbreviate ておく to とく in an informal setting!

  Your second example is a simple ‘~should know~’

  Your third example is also ‘~should know~’ but this particular verb isn’t generally used in the plain form. Can anyone elaborate on when it is?

• 

  rinchan93

  Wow! Thanks for the fast response!

  It seems like 知っておくべき and 知ってるべき are the two points we can use!

• 

  wct

  Relevant research I’ve already tried

  The Information section begins with this background:

  However, looking at my ‘go to’ reference Jisho.org (which may not be the best overall, I don’t know, but it’s the best thing I know how to use well), I looked up the kanji 可 in conjunction with the kana べ (using this search text: *可* *べ* ), and found three relevant listings for the ‘origin’ of this formation:

  1. 可べき, listed as a ‘generic’ word type of
• 

  nekoyama

  These are conjugated forms of the same word. It’s theorized that the origin is the adverb うべ transformed into an adjective. べし is the 終止形, べく is the 連用形, and べき is the 連体形. It somehow avoided the changes that happened since then and in modern Japanese, these classical forms are still used, but some conjugations have been (partially) replaced with ones that act like it’s a noun (べきだ、べきではない etc.). “Partially” because e.g. べからず is also still used as a negative form. But others are not, e.g. べかりき、べかりけり past forms are not used anymore.

  As for whether it’s a verb or not… in Japanese grammar terms it’s a 助動詞 which could indeed be translated as “auxiliary verb”. But 助動詞 don’t necessarily act like full verbs, e.g. -た、-たい、-ない are 助動詞 too. So maybe it’s better to call them “auxiliaries”. The term has nothing to do with their origins anyway, it just describes what they’re used for now.

• 

  testing

  The description says that this grammar point “implies some sort of moral obligation, or that (A) is the only reasonable course of action.”. I can see this in most of the examples, but some of them don’t feel like that to me:

  • この茶碗（）を買（）うべきだ。こんな掘（）り出（）し物（）はあまりないよ。
    You should buy this bowl. It is not often that you come across such a bargain.
  • 日本語（）を声（）に出（）して読（）むべきだ。その方（）が上達（）するから。
    You should read Japanese aloud, because you wi...
• 

  bokudake

  I also don’t see how to distinguish between ばいい, べき, …

  明日()の会議()は重大()な話()があるので、出席()をするべきだ。
  Because we will talk about something important at tomorrow’s meeting, everyone should attend.

  The above sounds like an obligation.
  But, during the review there was a hint “Advice”. An advice is not a moral obligation in my understanding and seeing the hint I thought すればいい would be appropriate. But べき was expected instead.

• 

  nekoyama

  べき is stronger, but it can still be advice. It doesn’t have to be a moral obligation. In this case it’s just practical advice based on a strong reason.

  すればいい doesn’t fit in the gap because of the following だ.

• 

  bokudake

  Judging by examples of べき I’ve encountered and the example sentences what you say is true.
  Why is だ not allowed after すればいい?