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-でしょう　verb ending

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As I'm learning some Japanese for the first time in a little while today, i think ill be adding a few questions to this part of the forum. I apologise in advance for the "spamming" nature of the volume of simple posts i post today. You may also notice that my questions are based around verb conjugation, as this is the topic for the day.>!

yorkii

anyway:

I have now come across the -deshou ending. I want to test my understanding of the ending using the sentences below:

よこわ こうえんを あそばない でしょう

Yoko probably won't/doesn't play in the park.

スミスさんわ なにも かいません でした でしょう

Mr. Smith probably didn't buy anything.

are these right..?
 
I dunno the book I use says that deshou is rarely used in negative form. probably is already partially negative as it represents uncertaintity. So I think you don't have to worry about using it with negative forms.
 
Deshou can be used after 'nai' endings, especially for questions or polite corrections. まちがいではないでしょうか？ It may be a mistake, don't you think ?
Otherwise, something slightly more decisive like "to omoimasu" is more natural.

At any rate, the much more serious problems for this sentence
are わ for は、こうえんを for こうえんで

スミスさんわ なにも かいません でした でしょう

Mr. Smith probably didn't buy anything.
Click to expand...
スミスさんは なにも かわなかったでしょう（けど）
 
:: throws books away ::
Damn books are good for nothing.......but everywhere I look on the web nothing is mentioned about using it with negative forms so I had no clue.

まちがいではないでしょうか
Click to expand...
To me this sounds more like "That's probably not a mistake."
Is that a wrong way to read it?
 
Ja nai (with a rising tone, a straight voice would be interpreted I think as literally negative) is used a lot like to transform a potentially strong statement into something more ambiguous, or less direct and oppositional....

辞書などだけでは細かいところまでは教えられないんですね。

Another example :

→日本語にありますかね？活躍的じゃなくて、活動的とか活発ではないでしょうか？
 

This is a tricky pitfall for some new Japanese learners. Notice the "ka" is inserted after "darou". This makes the entire line into a sentence, and has the tone of asking for confirmation from others, for the purpose of "suppressing' your view toward them, without indirectly doing so。

もし｢テロ主義は許せないことじゃないだろうか｣って言うと、英語ではね、"terrorism iS something not permissible, isn't it？" になるわけです
 
Throwing out the rhetorical じゃない for a second, the way the conjectural copula (だろう/でしょう) was introduced to me was that it usually means "probably...," and in questions means "I wonder..." About the negative form, it doesn't have one. You can use まい, but it's more common to negate the verb and use だろう/でしょう.

田中はもう帰っただろう。
"Tanaka probably went home already."

田中はもう帰っただろうか。
"I wonder if Tanaka went home already."

田中はまだ帰らなかっただろう。
"Tanaka probably hasn't gone home yet."

田中はまだ帰らなかっただろうか。
"I wonder if Tanaka hasn't gone home yet."

田中はまだ帰るまい。
"Tanaka probably won't go home yet."

But not 田中はまだ帰ったまい, 田中はまだ帰るまかった, or 田中はまだ変えるまいだった, because there is no past form for まい. To use it just add it to the dictionary form of all verbs. It can also be added to just the masu form of Group II verbs, e.g. できまい and 食べまい. For polite mode add it to the end of masu: この辺にはありますまい。 One more note on まい -- it can also mean the speaker's negative volition: こんな高いセーターを買うまい。 ("I'm not buying such an expensive sweater.")
 
日本語では「まだ帰らなかった」と言う言い方はしません :?

「まだ帰っていません」か「まだ帰ってきてません。」が自然だと思います。
 

I think the same way too. 「まだ帰らなかった」 というのは、めったにないんじゃないかと思うですけど。。不自然っていうか、ちょっと間違ったというか。。と気がする。
 
Well, I thought about it before I used it, and it seems to me that まだ帰らなかった would show that someone hasn't returned home yet and implies that they haven't left for home yet. On the other hand, まだ帰っていない would mean that they haven't reached home yet. That is, they could still be on their way, or they could have not left yet. And まだ帰ってきてません would mean that they haven't come home yet, i.e. you are where they are going. I meant it to mean that someone has not left yet and you are where they are leaving, and that there is no way to know whether they have arrived yet. Now, I'm not sure whether or not native Japanese speakers make this distinction, but it seems at the very least to be logical to me. I could have been going out on too much of a limb here, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
A tricky question | Japan Forum

It was actually discussed a few months ago in the above thread.
But my main evidence for lack of a distinction comes from never having seen
まだ帰らなかった and its few Google hits. As a side note : 帰ってきてません can be said by someone in the same general vicinity (country) as the returnee but not necessarily 'at home' awaiting the person. For instance, I was just wondering when you would be getting home from Japan : いつごろ帰ってくるのかなあと思っていたところです。

Hasn't left yet I think would be either まだ残っています。」とか「まだ帰っていません」と思います。
Or まだ出ていない ?
 
As a native speaker of Japanese I think まだ帰らなかった sounds kind of awkward. I understand your logic though. まだ帰っていない can mean either someone hasn't left for home yet or hasn't reached home yet depending on what is being understood.

田中はまだ帰っていないだろう。
If the speaker doesn't know if 田中 has left for home or not, the sentence 田中はまだ帰っていないだろう。means that Tanaka probably hasn't left for home yet. And if he/she knows that 田中 has already left for home, it means that Tanaka probably hasn't reached home yet.
 
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nice gaijin
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