I've Heard That...

The New Year's holidays are just around the courner! Last year I was in Taiwan, but I'm going to stay with my family in Japan this year. How will you spend your winter holidays?

As though it's already end of December, it's not so cold yet. We had snow last week but just a little. Today it's a pretty sunny day. I've heard that it won't be a cold winter this year.


*Japanese Word of the Day*
今年(ことし)の冬(ふゆ)はあんまり寒(さむ)くならないらしいね。
/kotoshi no fuyu wa anmari samuku naranai rashii ne/
I've heard that it won't be so cold this winter.

*今年（ことし）/kotoshi/ this year
*冬（ふゆ）/fuyu/ winter
*あんまり /anmari/ so (casual spoken way of あまり/amari/)
It's usually used with negative form of verbs.

あんまりかわいくない。
/anmari kawaiku nai/
Not so cute.

あんまりおもしろくない。
/anmari omoshiroku nai/
Not so interesting.

あんまり好きじゃない。
/anmari suki ja nai/
Not so preferable. (I don't like it very much)

*寒(さむ)い /samui/ cold
*ならない /naranai/ not become (the negative form of なる/naru/)
*...らしい /rashii/ it is said that..., it seems that..., it looks like...
*ね /ne/ you know (one of the sentence ending particles)


I'd like to write more about the term らしい in this post. I translated it as "I've heard that" in this sentence because らしい indicates that it is not based on the speaker's opinion. Maybe he has heard it from his friend or read it on a book, on the internet, or something else. The speaker isn't certain if it's true or false.

そうだ also has the same meaning, and you can replace らしい with it. I think we use らしい more in the conversation.

明日(あした)は雪(ゆき)が降(ふ)る らしい(そうだ)。
/ashita wa yuki ga furu rashii(souda)/
I've heard that it will snow tomorrow.

日本人(にほんじん)は英語(えいご)が話(はな)せない らしい(そうだ)。
/nihonjin wa eigo ga hanasenai rashii(souda)/
It is said that Japanese people can't speak English.

I've written about そうだ before, so please visit this post to check more example sentences of it.


Now I tell you about another meaning of らしい. See the example sentence below.
アンナ(あんな)は男(おとこ)らしい人(ひと)が好(す)きらしい。
/Anna wa otoko rashii hito ga suki rashii/
I've heard that Anna likes a masculine man.

As you see, I wrote らしい twice in this sentence. The one at the end of the sentence has the same meaning with what I explained above. It means that the speaker heard it from others.

What the former one means then? To put it simply, it means "just like something". 男(おとこ)らしい/otoko rashii/ means "just like as a man", "typical of a man" or
"manly". So 女(おんな)らしい/onnna rashii/ is "feminine" or "womanly" as well.

こんなにおとなしいなんて、アンナらしくない。
/konnani otonashii nante, Anna rashiku nai/
It's not like Anna to be so quiet.
*こんなに /konnani/ such, so
*おとなしい /otonashii/ to be quiet, not active,
らしくない is a negative form of らしい.

冬(ふゆ)らしい雰囲気(ふんいき)
/fuyu rashii fun'iki/
The wintery mood


*Wrap Up*
[Information] + らしい
- The speaker heard it from others and he is not certain about the truth

[Person/Things] + らしい
- It is just like what it is, or usual for someone



That's all for today! Thank you for reading. I always welcome your comment or questions about Japanese language or culture! :) Hopefully, I can update my blog once again before this year-end.

Anyway, have a great holidays everybody!! :D