様(よう)だIt seems that, It appears that, It looks like

Most Recent Replies (18 in total)

• 

  Pushindawood

  it seems that, it appears that, it looks like

  Structure
  ・Verb + ようだ
  ・Noun + の・ようだ
  ・なAdj + な・ようだ
  ・いAdj + ようだ

  [Similarity or conjecture/judgement・based on direct/reliable information・high confidence・can be based on observation, but doesn’t have to be]
  [More confident/certain than そうだ]

  View on Bunpro

• 

  Daru

  I think this video should be added on the lesson links:
  

  Being able to separate the uses so clearly helped me a lot.

• 

  Pushindawood

  @Daru Added! Thank you for providing this link. Cheers!

• 

  Johnathan-Weir

  If よう is supposed to be more formal than みたい why do we use だ with it and not です?

• 

  Daru

  Think of it as みたい being more conversational, and ようだ・ようです being more used in written language.

  This kind of thing happens a lot so watch out!

• 

  Pep95

  赤ちゃんですようだ

• 

  mrnoone

  @Johnathan-Weir @Pep95

  Hey and supper sorry for late answer

  Like @Daru said.
  While it is more formal, it doesn’t mean it cannot be used in conversation between friends. (But it will sound stiff, so use it when talking to teacher, your senpai at work etc.)

  By the way, in Japanese literary style (the one used to write books, thesis, encyclopedias and the like), short forms are used instead of polite (long) forms. Think of it as being formal, without being “polite”. Also, unlike casual style, there are no contractions or particle skipping. That’s why its better to call it “short form” instead of “casual form”.

• 

  Pep95

  That seems like a better pun version

• 

  broozeb

  According to this video, ようだ and みたいだ are LESS certain than そうだ。
  

• 

  EdBunpro

  Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the そうだ in your pic is based off of appearances (thus 100%) vs. そうだ being used for hearsay. There’s a really good wasabi jpn link used in the readings that helped me try to get the handle of these differences at first

• 

  Chiinox

  Why is
  このコーラは苦い。まるでコーヒーがします
  not accepted as an answer, to mean “This cola is bitter. It tastes like coffee.”?

  My understanding is that がする can be used to talk about senses, to say something smells/tastes/looks like something, but here the review question does not accept this, expecting のようだ instead.

• 

  IcyIceBear

  Welcome to the community

  From what I know of the まるで point, it likes to have a みたい or よう tossed in. Not saying it does or doesn’t work with がする because I honestly don’t know. But if the review is testing ようだ it’s gonna want you to use ようだ. Usually it will nudge you in the right direction if you answer with a synonym of sorts without failing you on it, so this leads me to believe you can’t use まるで with がする, or that it doesn’t want you to say it “tastes like coffee” just that it’s bitter " like coffee. " In the latter case, maybe just a translation confusion

  This cola is bitter. Just like coffee.

  まるで point for reference

• 

  Fuga

  Hey there @Chiinox !

  You are correct that がする is used when talking about senses, however, the noun before がする must be a sensory noun (匂い・香り・味・感じ・etc.). Another reason why がする can’t be used here is because まるで is usually paired with ようだ to emphasize the similarity, and pairing it with がする alone makes the sentence very unnatural.

  So, if you want to use がする in this sentence you would either change the sentence a bit to say, コーヒーの味がします (it gives off coffee flavor) or まるでコーヒーのような味がします(It almost tastes like coffee).

  I hope this clears it up a little!

• 

  soundjona

  Hello, in DBJG it says ようだ is a aux. na-adj., but in bunpro it says " This auxiliary verb is used to express three primary things.". I think it also make a bit more sense that it’s a na-adj since you need a "な・の” if it’s modified by a noun/na-adj just like other nouns/na-adj.

• 

  nekoyama

  This sounds like a conflict, but actually isn’t one because in traditional Japanese grammar (as opposed to anything written in English), na-adjectives are also considered “adjectival verbs” as a unit with the copula. In the same way ようだ (again as a unit including the copula) is considered an auxiliary verb. So this is just a matter of terminology, but not really different concepts.

• 

  soundjona

  Ok ! Thanks for the info

• 

  Eruliuce

  Hello,
  I have a question about one of the example sentences in this lesson :
  彼はいつも変な事言っているけど、本当は真面目なようだ。

  I wonder why there isn’t a particle between 変な事 and 言っている.
  I would have put a を there. Would it be wrong ? If not, is it optional for some reason ?

• 

  casual

  You would be completely correct in putting を there.

  But in informal speech (friends) and informal writing (chat, SNS) particles are often omitted when they are obvious from context. I don’t know if there are specific rules, but this take sounds reasonable to me: ellipsis - What are the guidelines for omitting particles? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange.

  In this sentence I’m guessing enunciating ことを was too much hassle and so the speaker decided to ditch the を. Since it seems to come from a chat between friends, that sounds fine.

• 

  Eruliuce

  Thank you. I knew you could omit か at the end of questions, but it didn’t occur to me you could drop other particles inside the sentence.
  I suppose it’ll become natural once I hear a lot of spoken Japanese.