Yesterday we learned one of expressions to say speculation, which was “-deshou.” Today we are going to learn another expression to say speculation, “-kamoshiremasen.” When it comes to differences between the two, “-kamoshiremasen” is a little bit less confident and/or less certain than “-deshou”. Sometimes “-kamoshiremasen” is used for the level of suspicion.
At a glance, you may feel that “-kamoshiremasen” is a long word in spelling. How can we learn this new expression? It is rare, but sometimes we would find a second language textbook that gives us explanations with subdividing expressions into minimum pieces. If I do it for “-kamoshiremasen”, this expression could be subdivided like below;
-kamo : a compound particle with the ending particles “-ka.” and “-mo.”
-ka. : question, being moved, exclamation
-mo. : being moved, exclamation
-shire- : an intransitive verb that has to do with the transitive verb “Shiru/Shirimasu”
-masen : the sentence ending of present-negative in polite speech style.
I don’t think a subdivision like above would help a learner understand “-kamoshiremasen.” The following is just my personal view, but rather than to subdivide the expression like this into minimum segments, it is better to learn it as a cluster of words when learning a second language.
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This post was written with reference to the exercise A3 on Section32 of “Minna no Nihongo (2nd Edition)” published by “3A Corporation”
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