〜そうだ: Hearsay ('I hear that') | Japanese Grammar

English flags secondhand information with a small kit of words: I hear, apparently, they say, supposedly, it seems. Japanese has a dedicated grammatical marker for it — 〜そうだ — that you tack onto the end of a complete statement to signal "this isn't my own observation; I got it from somewhere else." It is one of the most useful pieces of adult Japanese, and it is also half of the single most confused pair in the whole language, because there is another そう that means "looks like." The two are told apart by one thing: what comes before そう. Nail that, and you have solved the confusion for good.

The one rule: attach to the plain form

Hearsay そうだ attaches to the plain form of a full predicate — verb, i-adjective, na-adjective, or noun. Whatever the plain sentence would be on its own, you say it and then add そうだ.

Predicate	Plain form	そうだ (hearsay)
Verb	雨が降る	雨が降るそうだ
i-adjective	おいしい	おいしいそうだ
na-adjective	元気だ	元気だそうだ
Noun + だ	学生だ	学生だそうだ

The critical detail is that na-adjectives and nouns keep their だ: 元気だそうだ, 学生だそうだ. Drop it and you have accidentally written the other そう (appearance), which changes the meaning completely — more on that below.

天気予報によると、明日は雪が降るそうだ。

tenki yohō ni yoru to, ashita wa yuki ga furu sō da

According to the forecast, it's going to snow tomorrow.

田中さんは来週結婚するそうです。

Tanaka-san wa raishū kekkon suru sō desu

I hear Tanaka is getting married next week.

あの新しいラーメン屋、とても辛いそうだ。

ano atarashii rāmen-ya, totemo karai sō da

That new ramen place is supposed to be really spicy (I've heard).

先生はお元気だそうです。

sensei wa o-genki da sō desu

I hear the teacher is doing well.

Naming your source

Because the whole point is reported information, hearsay そうだ pairs naturally with a phrase naming where you got it: 〜によると／〜によれば ("according to"), 〜の話では ("from what … says"). These are optional but common, and they make you sound precise.

友達の話では、あの映画はすごく面白いそうだ。

tomodachi no hanashi de wa, ano eiga wa sugoku omoshiroi sō da

According to my friend, that movie is really good.

ニュースによると、来月から電車代が上がるそうです。

nyūsu ni yoru to, raigetsu kara densha-dai ga agaru sō desu

According to the news, train fares are going up from next month.

Tense and negation live in the clause, not in そうだ

Here is the mechanical fingerprint of hearsay そうだ: it has no tense, no negative, and no attributive form of its own. Everything that could vary lives inside the plain clause before そう. Want to report a past event? Put the clause in the past (降った → 降ったそうだ). A negative? Negate the clause (降らない → 降らないそうだ). You never touch そうだ itself.

昨日の試験はかなり難しかったそうだ。

kinō no shiken wa kanari muzukashikatta sō da

I heard yesterday's exam was pretty hard.

山田さんは今日は来ないそうです。

Yamada-san wa kyō wa konai sō desu

I hear Yamada isn't coming today.

彼は昔、有名な歌手だったそうだ。

kare wa mukashi, yūmei na kashu datta sō da

Apparently he used to be a famous singer.

Notice 難しかった, 来ない, 歌手だった — the variation is all upstream. And you can never write ×難しいそうだった or ×来なそうだ (hearsay). This rigidity is exactly what makes the hearsay そうだ easy to recognize: if the whole plain predicate is intact in front of そう, and そう itself is frozen, it's hearsay.

The crux: hearsay そうだ vs appearance そう

Japanese has a second そう, taught on the appearance そう page, meaning "looks like / seems (from what I observe)." It attaches not to the full plain form but to the stem, dropping い and だ. That single structural difference is the entire distinction:

	Hearsay そうだ ("I hear")	Appearance そう ("looks like")
Attaches to	full plain form	stem (drops い / だ)
Verb	降るそうだ	降りそうだ
i-adjective	おいしいそうだ	おいしそうだ
na-adj / noun	元気だそうだ	元気そうだ
Can modify a noun?	never	yes (おいしそうな)

So おいしいそうだ = "I hear it's tasty" (you never tasted it), while おいしそうだ = "it looks tasty" (it's in front of you). One extra い flips the whole meaning. When you catch yourself unsure which そう you want, ask: am I passing along a report, or reporting my own eyes? Report → keep the full plain form. Eyes → drop to the stem.

💡

The test is purely mechanical. Full plain predicate before そう (降る, 高い, 静かだ, 学生だ) = hearsay. Bare stem before そう (降り, 高, 静か, and no noun at all) = appearance. You do not have to feel the difference — you can read it off the grammar.

Register

Both そうだ (plain) and そうです (polite) are everyday spoken and written Japanese. In stiff formal writing — reports, news, officialese — you will also meet the near-synonyms 〜とのことだ and 〜という for reported information, but for ordinary conversation and most prose, 〜そうだ is the natural choice. (formal alternatives: 〜とのことだ, 〜と聞いている.)

Common Mistakes

❌ 先生は元気そうだ。

Wrong for 'I hear the teacher is well' — dropping だ makes it appearance: 'the teacher looks well.'

✅ 先生は元気だそうだ。

sensei wa genki da sō da

I hear the teacher is well.

❌ あのラーメンは辛そうだ。

Wrong for 'I hear it's spicy' — the stem 辛 gives appearance, 'it looks spicy,' which you can't judge without tasting.

✅ あのラーメンは辛いそうだ。

ano rāmen wa karai sō da

I hear that ramen is spicy.

❌ 学生そうだ。

Wrong for 'I hear he's a student' — a bare noun can't take appearance そう, and hearsay needs だ: 学生だそうだ.

✅ 彼は大学の学生だそうだ。

kare wa daigaku no gakusei da sō da

I hear he's a university student.

❌ 去年は雪が多いそうだった。

Wrong — hearsay そうだ has no past of its own; the tense goes in the clause.

✅ 去年は雪が多かったそうだ。

kyonen wa yuki ga ōkatta sō da

I hear there was a lot of snow last year.

Key Takeaways

Hearsay そうだ = plain form + そうだ, reporting information from an outside source ("I hear / they say").
Keep だ after na-adjectives and nouns: 元気だそうだ, 学生だそうだ.
そうだ itself never inflects and never modifies a noun; tense and negation live in the clause (降ったそうだ, 来ないそうだ).
The difference from appearance 〜そう is entirely structural: full plain form = hearsay, bare stem = appearance. おいしいそう ≠ おいしそう.

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