Hearsay – I’ve heard that…
• This is to express what the speaker heard or
read.
• Information source may be a form of
someone’s conversation, newspaper, radio,
magazine etc and even from a rumour.
• This expression is often come with ‘~による
と’ (according to)
• I’ve heard that, they say that
Difference between ようです and そうです is that そうです is you got
the information from other people/source,
ようです is from your judgment or your knowledge.
どうも is sometimes accompanied with ようです which
suggests the speaker cannot be certain if what s/he is
saying is a fact
ミラーさんは忙しいそうです。
ミラーさんは忙しいようです。
ミラーさんは忙しそうです。
声・音・におい・味がします。
A phenomenon that is perceivable by the senses regardless of the
speaker’s intention.
変な音がします。だれか来たようです。
You look at Mirror
being busy
You judge/guess
that Mirror is busy
You heard that
Mirror is busy
(病院で)
ななえ:What are you looking around restlessly?
ともや:I can hear someone’s talking voice…
ななえ:It is normal that there are people’s voice and ambulance’s sound because there are a
lot of people and many ambulance come too.
ともや:Yes, true but the voice is heard although there is no one behind me. According to the
news, in this hospital, I’ve heard that they do many medical experiments.
ななえ:Really! It is scary, isn’t it? I’ve heard that there are many people will pass away too.
Do you think it is a ghost?(おばけ)
ともや:Oh, please stop it! I am a man but I don’t like ghosts.
ななえ:It doesn’t matter (かんけいない) if you are male or female. Ghosts are scary.
ともや:They are, aren’t they? Oh, speaking of which (そう言えば), I’ve heard that the
president seems to be able to see ghosts.
ななえ:Is that so? If I can see ghosts, I can’t bear it! (たえる)
ともや:Me too. I don’t like girlfriend who can see ghosts too. If I get married to such
person, ghosts might possibly gather to my house!
ななえ:That, you think too much! But, if we think about it, it seems that there are more
people who passed away than people who are alive. So, it is not strange (ふしぎ)
even if there are ghosts here.
ともや:Are you bullying me? I told you that I hate ghosts! I wanted to live long but it may be
better to give it up. (to stop that idea)
ななえ:I guess so. If you live long, you might increase a chance to see ghosts, mightn’t you?
ともや:Oh, please really stop it. It seems that there is a girl with no legs over there.
Oh, God, I can see every single one of them (だれもかれもみんな) are ghosts.
ななえ: Yes, let’s stop this story. We become not able to sleep tonight!