Seen most of these thrown around in class, online, and shows.

Sources:

Tae Kim: Certainty

Adverbs

絶対 - “Absolutely” (100%)

きっと - “Surely” / “Undoubtedly” (~90%)

多分 - “Probably” / “More likely than not” / “Maybe”

でしょう

Structure: Use in place of the copula for nouns. For adjectives and verbs, add after the direct form. Direct/blunt version is だろう. (~60%?)

Use: Has many uses. Mainly as a less certain copula. Here, used to show a fair amount of certainty about something happening.

明日晴れの天気でしょう - “It will probably be clear weather tomorrow”

たくさん勉強したから合格しただろう - “I probably passed because I studied a lot”

かもしれない

Structure: Sentence ending particle (basically, actually a verb I guess). か + も particle + “to be unable to know”. Looks like people usually use direct style before the particle. Can be shortened to かも in casual situations.

Use: Shows a neutral possibility (~50% confidence).

明日は雪が降るかもしれません - “Maybe/Possibly it will snow tomorrow”

母が病気だから明日は遅れるかもしれない - “I may be late tomorrow because by mother is sick”

Wondering

でしょう/だろう + か - “I wonder …”

Ex.

今何時だろうか? - “What time is it? (I wonder)”

っけ - Sentence ending particle used when trying to recall something.

Ex.

どこに車を停めたっけ? - “Where did I park the car? (I wonder)”




Vocab:

Here are some kanji from the lessons that I wasn’t really familiar with at this point:

  • 絶対. Defined above. Pronounced “zettai”

  • 停める. Other form of a word we already know. Means “to stop (specifically to park)”, and some other stuff”. Pronounced “tomeru”