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Hazu VS Tashika ni

KashimaKing

Kouhai
6 Oct 2015
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Sorry to bother you all once again but i have another question i need some help with. My wife is actually Japanese but for some reason she struggles actually explaining the differences with some things.

はず と 確かに sound almost the same to me.

Please take a lot at these sentences.

To me, both of these sound exactly the same - to say (surely there is someone up there, there must be someone up there, it must be a big dog, im sure i said that etc.)

Please help me im pulling my hair out!


確かにもう言った
もう言ったはずです

確かに上にだれかいる
上にだれかいるはずです

確かに大きい犬です
大きい犬のはずです

Thank you
 
I'm interested to see what the "real" answer is. But to me 確かに means you have some direct knowledge or experience. Whereas with はず it's less certain. Maybe it's something you heard or your memory is more fuzzy about it.
"I'm sure I told you" vs. "I should have told you (didn't I?)"
 
Sorry to bother you all once again but i have another question i need some help with. My wife is actually Japanese but for some reason she struggles actually explaining the differences with some things.

はず と 確かに sound almost the same to me.

Please take a lot at these sentences.

To me, both of these sound exactly the same - to say (surely there is someone up there, there must be someone up there, it must be a big dog, im sure i said that etc.)

Please help me im pulling my hair out!


確かにもう言った
もう言ったはずです

確かに上にだれかいる
上にだれかいるはずです

確かに大きい犬です
大きい犬のはずです

Thank you

There is a pretty important difference between the 確かに and the はずです sentences. I'm not going to open a grammar book now so I'm going with how I feel about it. Let's take the first sentence (I'm going to change the はずです in はずだ to have homogeneous registry).

確かにもう言った tashika ni mou itta, "I definitely told you already"
もう言ったはずだ mou itta hazu da, "I'm sure I told you, don't you remember?", "I already told you once, don't make me repeat myself"​

With the first sentence you are simply stating that you said something, and you are sure of it.
With the second sentence you have a slightly emotional, further meaning. The speaker is annoyed because he has to say something again. Depending on the intonation, this sentence could express severe annoyance or even anger.

The focus on the 確かに sentence is the fact that you did say it. On the second one, it's the fact that you are annoyed that your interlocutor is forgetful or is not listening. Often you can barely perceive this, if said in a very calm way it's just a normal way of reminding something to someone.

Take away the もう:

言ったはずだ itta hazu da

Then the expression has become quite strong. Even with です:

言ったはずです itta hazu desu

The annoyance has become patent. Okay next one. The translations are inaccurate, I am just trying to emphasize and manifest their potential meaning.

確かに上にだれかいる tashikani ue ni dareka iru, "I heard someone walking upstairs"
上にだれかいるはずだ ue ni dareka iru hazu da, "there got to be someone upstairs"​

Again I like it with だ. :emoji_grinning: This is slightly different now. The 確かに is similar to the 言った example. If I just read it, what I imagine is a man standing at the ground floor of a house, maybe a detective, and he just heard someone walking on the floor above; or maybe he saw someone behind the window from outside the house. It does sound a little creepy I have to say.

With the はずだ sentence, you are making a conjecture. You have enough evidence to state that there is someone on the floor above. Maybe you just got in and the stove is on; there is nobody on the ground floor: there must be someone on the floor above then.

Another meaning could be: you WANT someone to be 上に, maybe because you need someone's assistance. Even if you don't have enough proof, you know it's very likely that at this time of the day someone would be upstairs. A possible translation would be: "there has to be someone upstairs".

Okay another one is: Rick went upstairs to check, came back and said that there was no one. Now you are annoyed because you know there should be someone upstairs, so you are telling Rick 誰かいるはずだ dareka iru hazu da, "there must be someone, go back and check again", or "I'm going to check, you are useless". It doesn't mean you are sure of that, you are just annoyed that Rick came back without finding anyone.

確かに大きい犬です tashikani ookii inu desu, "yep, I can see it's a large dog!"
大きい犬のはずです ookii inu no hazu desu, "I've been told it's a large dog"​

The 確かに sentence is very easy indeed. 🙂: In this case my impression is that the person who is uttering the sentence is actually looking at the dog as he speaks. He can see that the dog is large. Again, with 確かに you have certainty.

If the person is not looking at the dog, then the person definitely saw the dog in the past. He/she is saying "it definitely was a large dog". It's obviously not mandatory, but another way of saying it would be 確かに大きい犬でした tashika ni ookii inu deshita, in the past form.

はずです here indicates that maybe you heard from Rick that the dog is large, and you are telling Mary what you heard. The sentence expresses a feeling of urgency or necessity. "There should be a large dog" could be a possible translation in this case.

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
確かに
Adverbial phrase, operates on the verb.
Expresses certainty, typically based on direct personal knowledge.

はず
Noun.
Expresses certainty, often based on supposition (i.e. how a thing is supposed to be or can be expected to be under normal circumstances)

The above is very loose and incomplete, but it should give you a starting point to work from. Learn the meaning of things like 確かめる、確かな、 and 確認 and you may get a better feel for 確かに.
 
for some reason she struggles
And now, KashimaKing, with these posts above you will understand why it is difficult to explain the very subtle and technical differences between these two phrases. Even with a high degree of English ability, the difference is not easily explained. I only mention this in the hopes that it will help avoid conflict with your wife. Sometimes, explaining language requires the speaker to have completely thought out the nuances of the language, when most times these things are internalized intuitively, through repeated exposure. I'm always amazed when I see very good explanations to things I have never really spent too much time thinking about.
 
Adding to what @Majestic has said, a Japanese spouse can be a great help when doing things like sentence pattern drills. They feed you the initial sentence and the subsequent substitutions and check that you got the output correct and let you know when your pronunciation is too far off the mark. They aren't so great at teaching Japanese, as a general thing.

There is a widespread perception that 1) people who speak Japanese well can do so because they have a Japanese spouse and/or 2) people who have a Japanese spouse just naturally pick up Japanese. Both ideas are complete hogwash. If you learn Japanese well, it will be despite having a Japanese spouse, not because you have a Japanese spouse.

Get your basics from books. Get your explanations online or from people you don't have to share living space with. Refine your knowledge and build your skills through assiduous application outside the home. Don't strain domestic tranquility by placing too much of a teaching burden on your wife; it isn't worth it.
 
確かに can be used in a sentence to express the speaker's annoyance/anger (e.g. 昨日確かにそう言ったじゃないか), and はず can be humble (e.g. 昨日そう伝えたはずだったんですが), so the nuance differs depending on the context after all.

I would just explain that はず is less probable than 確かに in most cases.
 
Sometimes, explaining language requires the speaker to have completely thought out the nuances of the language, when most times these things are internalized intuitively, through repeated exposure. I'm always amazed when I see very good explanations to things I have never really spent too much time thinking about

So true. I'm digressing from the OP, but even though I have spent time thinking about it, I still have trouble explaining to Japanese people in precisely which situations "by the way" can be used. I used to think it was used only when referring back to situations discussed previously, but now I realize that's not true. I know it is not 100% equivalent to either ちなみに or ところで, but it is hard to delimit precisely in which situations it can be used. It is easy, of course, to identify when it is being used incorrectly (or at least unnaturally), but much harder to explain the "rules" for usage.
 
確かに can be used in a sentence to express the speaker's annoyance/anger (e.g. 昨日確かにそう言ったじゃないか), and はず can be humble (e.g. 昨日そう伝えたはずだったんですが), so the nuance differs depending on the context after all.

I would just explain that はず is less probable than 確かに in most cases.

I had totally missed these uses. Cool, thanks Toritoribe. :)

Majestic and Mike Cash, I think you make very good points. You can't expect that someone arrives and explains to you the meaning of words like these in a final way. You develop a feel for them through repeated exposure.

When I started learning English about 10 years ago, the first thing I did was leave BBC's Channel 4 in the background. I could not understand anything at all initially, but I knew that I had to expose myself to the sound of the language first. Our brain is made to absorb languages like a sponge, so just expose it to them and let it do its job.

If I don't understand how a certain word or grammatical construct works, the first thing I do is google it and find dozens of phrases. That usually allows me to get a rough idea of what that is, without even opening a grammar book.
 
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