All right, so my apologies if this has already been asked, but how does one make rhetorical questions in Japanese? I’ve googled it and I’ve seen that じゃないの is apparently often used at the end of a sentence to indicate that it’s a rhetorical question, however that surely can’t be the only way to formulate a rhetorical question, and I imagine it can’t work in every case. I’ve read that it’s close to ending an English question ending with “right?”; if that is correct, what would be used for rhetorical questions such as “Why would I do that?”, “What could be more important than this?”, “Who would do that?”, etc? Furthermore, is there a verb tense in Japanese equivalent to “would” in English that would be used in these rhetorical questions?
And what if I want to speak in a more polite way? Such as in “Isn’t the weather wonderful today?” (when the weather is obviously very good and it’s just polite small talk with someone one doesn’t really know).
Can a rhetorical question in Japanese be formed just like in English – basically, the same format as a regular question, and we know it’s rhetorical based on the context?
And if it’s something that the “speaker” is thinking and not speaking to someone else about – like “Why did I think this could be a good idea?” – is it different?
I’m a beginner, clearly, and my knowledge of Japanese is very limited, so I’m sorry if this is a stupid question.
2 comments
From my personal understanding, I don’t think that rhetorical questions exist in japanese. Although I do wonder the same thing now and someone might be able to answer this question better
You’re correct – I’ve often seen some variant of じゃない used for this purpose.
E.g.
いいじゃん = it’s good, right? (Inf)
寒いんじゃない？ = isn’t it too cold (for that)?
I think tone and context are also used heavily as in English, where if something sounds obvious, it can be taken as rhetorical. From my experience, there isn’t a specific grammar point that conveys this.
Edit: formatting