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japanese/そうだ-vs-だそうだ

tags

N3grammarjapanese

〜そう

そうだ implies “seems” or “appears”. This is heavily driven by its form

“It seems ~” *This point is about making an observation

Warning

When using い-adjectives, the final い is dropped 暑い→暑そうだ Hot → Seems hot

Negation

When い-adjectives are negated, the final い is also dropped from ない and さ is added as a link 暑くない →

〜だそうだ

This point is about repeating information “I heard that ~“

Differing Between the Two

Verbs

Repeating information takes the unaltered form of the verb:

降るそうだ It heard that it’s raining 降りそうだ It seems like it’s raining

い-adjectives

寒いそうだ I heard that it’s cold 寒そうだ It seems cold

な-adjectives and Nouns

綺麗だそうだ I heard that it was beautiful 綺麗そうだ It seems clean

The gist is that plain form + そうだ implies that you’re repeating information, where as the stem + そうだ implies that you’ve observing information