会話 Dialogue 3

In an office building

Vocabulary

Grammar Notes

• Deshou ‘Probably’

Deshou is a tentative form of desu and indicates probability or likelihood. It can occur after an adjective or a noun:

Takai deshou.It’s probably expensive.

Sensei deshou.She’s probably a teacher.

When the particle ka is added to deshou sentences, it becomes even less sure. For this reason, deshou ka sounds more polite than desu ka in asking questions. Note the falling intonation on ka.

Takai deshou ka.Do you suppose it’s expensive?

Doko deshou ka.Where might it be?

When it is used alone with question intonation, deshou? is a response to something that the speaker feels to be self-evident: ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ or ‘I know you would agree.’

Aa, oishii desu!Oh, it’s delicious!

–Deshou?Isn’t it? (Didn’t I tell you?)

• Mou and Motto ‘More’

Both mou and motto mean ‘more’ in English, but they are followed by different elements. The word motto was introduced in Lesson 3. It combines with a verb, adjective, noun+desu to indicate a greater degree than what has been mentioned.

Motto douzo.Please have more.

Motto yasui apaatocheaper apartments

Motto kirei desu.It’s prettier.

The word mou combines with a quantity expression to indicate added amount. Unlike English, where ‘more’ follows the quantity, in Japanese it precedes the quantity.

mou chottoa little more

mou hito-tsuone more

When you offer something, motto is more polite, but when you accept an offer, mou sukoshi is more polite.

Motto nomimasen ka.Won’t you drink more?

-Ja, mou sukoshi itadakimasu. Well then, I’ll take a little more.

• More classifiers: 〜kai、〜do /〜kai

The classifier for floors of a building is –kai/-gai and the classifiers for counting the number of times are –do and -kai (recall Mou ichi-do onegai-shimasu. ‘One more time, please.’ from Lesson 1.) Note the difference between these two questions:

Nan-kai arimasu ka. ’How many floors are there?’

Nan-kai ni arimasu ka. ‘On which floor is it?’