An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

276 CHAPTER 6. LANGUAGE PATTERNS

6.1.3 Comparison through likeness, and impressions

Closely related to choices is the concept of comparing things. After all, if

you cannot make comparisons, you cannot determine preference. There

are quite a number of ways in which to compare things in Japanese, with

varying degree of strength in the comparison, and varying nuance in the

exact way the likeness, or contrast, works. You have already seen some

ways in which to do this, such as and

in the verb and particles

sections, but there are quite a few more, which will now look at.

• Weak impression (
  ,
  ), second hand information (
  )

The noun adjective (a word) paired with a verb in or

a verbal adjective’s stem, is used to create the construction of ”appearing

to be (at the point of) ...” or ”seems to be ... (to the speaker)”:

”It looks like (you)’ll be able to perform this job.”

”It seems warm.”

”A fast looking car.”
For (which as you should remember is the alternative
for ) and , this construction is slightly different. Rather than
and , these two adjectives become and
respectively.
Note that this only works with verbs in , and verbal adjective
stems. can also be used in combination with verbal
, but then
it means something quite different: rather than indicating impression, this
combination indicates second hand information:

”I heard you’d be able to perform this job.”

”They say it’s warm.”

This kind of second hand information is also called ”hearsay”, al-

though this term should not be taken too literally; it equally applies to sec-