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Aさんはおとこらしいです。

When you read the above sentence, what kind of person did you think A is?

 

らしい has two different meanings if it is following a noun, in this case  おとこ (male).

 

One meaning is that of “appropriateness” i.e. the above sentence means “A (is a male and) behaves like a male.”

 

The other meaning is that of “estimate” or “hearsay”, so the above sentence means “I am not certain but I heard A is a male.” In this case, you did not know the gender of A or Person A did not look like a man.

 

The pronunciations of the sentences are different though.

“Mr A behaves like a man.” is:

“I hear that Person A is a male.” is:

2 thoughts on “Aさんはおとこらしいです。

  1. Reply
    ~ようです/~ようだ | EasyJapaneseE
    26 January 2023 at 10:35 am

    […] the sentence does not have の just before the brackets, b. みたい and d. らしい can be […]

  2. Reply
    こどもらしい and こどもみたい | EasyJapaneseE
    26 June 2020 at 6:07 pm

    […] week I wrote about 男らしい. Today, I am going to compare らしい and […]

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