Intermediate Japanese Language Learning with Dazai Osamu

“There must have been some misfortune that came from the lord’s isolating social status.” …and two example sentences:

“Hey, check out the unique color and shape of that car… it’s got to be a european import!”

So what does this mean? Well, when we use ちがいない, it basically indicates some sort of strong belief or surety

that you have about something. You feel like this thing is pretty much “right on,” right? And your… kind of… intuition is telling you: “Yeah, this is… this is right. It must be this thing, right?

“There’s no doubt about it. I’m sure.”

It’s kind of this gut feeling, this intuition… uh, but you’re kind of guessing a little bit. It’s a it’s another one of these “supposing auxiliaries,” right? But, your assumption is pretty darn high. Now, I just threw a lot of words at you in English there, right?

“Must be,” “there’s no doubt about it,” —this word is pretty much the same in Japanese.

There are words that will feel familiar in its place, and there’s one in particular that you might be reminded of from a past lesson… that is pretty much interchangeable with this word. And the previous word that you learned is はずだ. And the reason they’re kind of interchangeable is because they both indicate this sort of presumptive certainty, right? You’re presuming certainty. These two are similar enough to be exchanged. But, there are of course things you need to pay attention to and we’ll do that in our examples.

In this example we’ll show you how these two words can be interchanged with one another without issue. First, ちがいない:

And in English this would sound something like: “Since we have an important exam today, Kinoshita is sure to come.”

But, as I mentioned there are instances where these two are not necessarily interchangeable. And when placing はずだ into the sentence would make it feel and sound quite unnatural. So, let’s listen to this at play. And, first we’ll take a look at a sentence that uses, um… ちがいない, and then we’ll do はずだ after that so you can see the difference. And we’ll explain why it doesn’t work. So, first ちがいない :

So the reason why はずだ doesn’t really work (and will feel unnatural)… in this type of a sentence, is because of the form of the sentence. So, ちがいない works for this reason:

And then you might ask yourself: “Why does my skirt feel tight on me?” and make some assumptive guess, and then that guess, here… is the reason why you think your skirt is tight. The reason being “Oh, I must have put on a few pounds, right?”

So that’s the form. You have this current state (or situation)… you question: “Why am I in this place?”

“Why am I in this situation?” You make a guess… and then the reason that you… you state is what follows. Now, はずだ doesn’t really like that form. It has a different kind of domain that it plays in, and we’ll show you that territory right now with an example in Japanese.

“Since Rika has been eating only pepperoni pizza lately, I’m sure she’s gained a few kilos these last two weeks.” はずだ’s preferred form is where you want to create a sentence and you’re making a conclusion and you’re drawing that conclusion based on some sort of logic and objectivity. We tend to use it when commenting about someone or something else, as opposed to ourselves, and it has two basic elements (this form). The first element is this logical reason that exists in your mind, and then the conclusion that’s inevitably drawn from that reason. And, the conclusion is not verified… hasn’t been proven… nor, has it been confirmed.

This is basically はず.

And, in our example we have: “Rika has been eating only pepperoni pizza as of late…” that’s our reason… and the conclusion that we’re drawing is that: “… I’m sure she’s gained a few kilos these last two weeks.” Now what’s interesting about this is ちがいない can fit into は だ’s form, but はず can’t really fit into ちがいない’s form. ちがいない has more breadth to it and you can apply it to this form.

With the examples that we’ve shown you so far, we’ve shown you this ちがいない form existing in a single sentence and also existing in two separate sentences, as you see in this car example. In Dazai’s example, he does the same thing. He uses two different sentences. In the first sentence he describes this current state of the lord… of him having gone mad. And, then in this second sentence, he talks about the reason why it must be that the lord has gone mad.

So, it fits very nicely into this this form, right?

And, in our other examples you see this very same thing play out, right?

“The car looks really cool…” the current state… of “…its design and color…

You’ll see it more commonly in writing then you’ll necessarily hear it, and when you see it you’ll know that the writer is stating their opinion with you, and they’re doing so with a sort of sense of conviction that what it is they’re telling you is pretty much true in their mind and in their gut.