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Hey,
So I recently posted on Lang-8 to practice はずです, and received the following correction:
Original: 今年はたのしいはずです。
Correction 今年はたのしくなると思います。
From what I understand, the original means I expect this year to be fun whereas the corrected version means I think this year will be fun? Does the latter sentence just sound better/ more native or is the former sentence incorrect?
Any feedback is appreciated.
Thank you,
K
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This topic was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by
Kirsten Noack.
The corrected sentence is “I think this year will become fun” – it’s not くなる but rather the adverbial form of たのしい (I.e. たのしく) plus なる.
As for why the correction, I suspect it’s probably because はず indicates that you’ve drawn a conclusion based on some objective knowledge, while “this year ought to be fun” is somewhat subjective.
Thanks,
Yeah I should have changed the title to just なると思う since I did the なる lesson. oops.
So はず is generally used for more objective knowledge? For instance, 明日は雨がふるはずです。?
What about in the lesson when we practice the sentence about Freddy being pretty? If you`re saying you expect Freddy to be pretty that`s subjective, right?
I`m just wondering if it maybe sounds awkward when you make subjective statements using はず?
Thanks
If you’re expecting Freddy to be pretty, it’d be “based on what I’ve heard from other people, I can fairly reasonably draw the conclusion that Freddy is pretty” – the context being that you’re saying things about Freddy without having met him. If you’d met Freddy, and you think he’s pretty yourself, you’s be using と思う. Possibly a better way of defining the usage would be “based on some reliable evidence”.
It’s not really that it sounds awkward, it just makes you sound over-confident. I think. If you said in English “I expect I’ll win the lottery tomorrow”, you’ll either come across as arrogant or delusional. Everyone’s going to look at you and go “… Based on what evidence?”
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This topic was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by
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