LEARN + JAPANESE / 49 of 186 JLPT N4
Could Go Either Way 〜かもしれない
The sky is dark, but you haven’t checked the forecast: もうすぐ雨が降るかもしれません. かもしれない leaves room for a possibility without making a confident prediction.
It might rain tomorrow.
Daisuke might not come today.
Hint · 힌트
かもしれない sits at the low end of a certainty scale that also includes だろう and でしょう, which you already know. だろう leans toward “probably,” かもしれない just says “possible, no more than that,” a genuinely open guess rather than an educated one.
This curry might be spicy.
Naoki might be busy.
Saya might not be home right now.
Hint · 힌트
Nouns and な-adjectives drop だ entirely before かもしれない: 家だ becomes 家かもしれません, never 家だかもしれません. Verbs and い-adjectives attach in their plain form with no change, and かもしれない itself never conjugates to match politeness, only しれません softens it for polite speech.
Vocabulary
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| to fall (rain, snow) | |
| spicy | |
| busy | |
| to be late | |
| to make it in time | |
| injury | |
| typhoon | |
| earthquake | |
| dangerous | |
| possibility | |
| probability | |
| forecast | |
| anxiety, unease | |
| before long, soon | |
| perhaps, possibly | |
| to postpone | |
| to cancel, call off | |
| to break down | |
| to make a mistake | |
| to change |
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