![]() ![]() ![]() I hope you have a sandwich handy while you read these. Imagine situations in which you're asked or deciding what you want, like ordering food, deciding what to cook… Now that I think of it, most of these examples involve food. I wonder if you could take a photo of me.Įxpressing Desire or Intention 俺は豚カツカレーにしようかな。 Can I have a pork katsu curry?.The final example is a bit of an outlier: it shows you can also use かな to express regret, as though you were questioning yourself after the event had happened. You can use this sense when talking to someone else, but it's often characterized as talking to yourself out loud. Unfortunately, just like in English, it can either imply the person speaking knows or has made up their mind, or they haven't. It's also easy to spot, as it'll come after a simple statement. This is the meaning I've been using for all previous examples, and probably the one that most people will know. Students wanting to know how to say "I wonder" in Japanese find the answer quickly in the particle かな. That's why we teach Japanese particles with examples. There's a lot of potential overlap too, so it's be best to see these as the limits of what かな could mean, rather than totally separate senses of the word. The examples below are in no particular order, so use your judgement to work the meaning. Now that you know how to use かな, we can look at when and why you'll be using it. Here's a handy table you can use to check at a glance if you're using it right, with any kind of sentence. There are a few rules you need to learn, but it's similar to using any other sentence-ender particle. Grammar Usage TableĪs you can see, the actual use of かな isn't hideously complicated. Also like nouns, it's easier and more common to go without and just put かな at the end. I wonder if the United States really is a free country.īecause な adjectives are sort of like nouns, you can use some of the forms mentioned in the noun section, like ですかね and でしょうか with them as well.Because it's a casual Japanese particle, you'll generally want to use it with plain-form verbs: Like most other sentence-ender particles, you often simply slap かな on the end of a sentence without changing much at all. The good news is, the grammar of かな is simple. Before we start on the different meanings, we'll go through the grammar surrounding かな, so your sentences can be grammatically beautiful as well as meaningful. ![]() ![]() With technical stuff out of the way, let's get to the really important stuff: how to use かな. If you want to write this, you can choose either かなあ or かなぁ, and if you want to say it then just say it! Grammar of the Japanese Particle かな One last thing: you'll sometimes see and hear the あ sound on the end lengthened. This rule isn't one that's followed strongly, but it's worth bearing in mind if you happen to be invited to tea with the emperor. For a formal equivalent, でしょうか is probably closest, but comes with slightly different meanings and usage. It's also important to note that かな is considered an informal particle. かな is a combination of two existing particles: か and な. It's more a case of what one person wouldn't use, rather than what they would. While かな isn't an especially manly word, you're unlikely to hear a man use かしら. Literally, it might be translated as "I don't know whether…," but it has the same meaning as かな nowadays. That form is かしら, and derives from the same か particle with an odd form of the verb 知る ( し ), to know. There's also a feminine form of かな, for those who like to use such things. If you're writing it in a non-poetic context, hiragana かな is fine. While you can write it in kanji in a normal context, it's much more common to use this form in poetry, which we'll get to below. かな does have a kanji form too, which is 哉 ( かな ). な is kind of like saying "Huh, is that so?" if な is the "huh." Plonk them together, and you get the questioning of か with the emotion and implied doubt and consideration of な, leading to a general sense of "wonder." か turns a sentence into a question, and な is used like the Japanese particle ね (rhetorical question) with a bit more emphasis, and more casually. Some suggest かな is a combination of two existing particles: か and な. I've already shown you かな's most common form, which is… かな. I Wonder How the Japanese Particle かな Can Help Me?.First, though, let's get the hang of what it is we're writing and saying. This isn't necessarily wrong, but there are so many more shades of meaning, as well as different contexts, that can be used. ![]()
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