Hey there!
I need a little help understanding the difference between ようだ and そうだ. I thought I got the difference between them, but then I came across this sentence in the N4 Matome book:
\- 10時になっても、店が開かないですね。今日は(… )。
You have the choice between four answers to fill the gap:
1. 休みそうです
2. 休むんです
3. 休んだでしょう
4. 休みのようです
Obviously, 2 and 3 are wrong answers. According to the book, the right answer is 4. But why couldn’t it be 1 as well? Both expressions have a notion of observation and deduction in them, don’t they? I always thought that そうだ was more based on visual clues and ようだ more based on intuition and guessing. But this sentence kind of makes me question my understanding of this grammar point.
Could any of you give me some explanation about this sentence, and maybe about the two expressions in general to help me know how to use them correctly?
Thank you in advance!
1 comment
The correct answer should be 4.
They both mean nearly the same thing – seems like – and the difference lies in the conjugation with verbs/adjectives/nouns. Both forms can be used to communicate your assessment/opinion of a situation as well as hearsay.
Link for そうです [https://tanosuke.com/soudesu-4-pattern](https://tanosuke.com/soudesu-4-pattern)
Link for ようです [https://langoal.com/jlpt/explain-grammar-youdesu-guess.html](https://langoal.com/jlpt/explain-grammar-youdesu-guess.html)
The conjugation for both forms is different.
As 休み is a noun, the conjugation for そうです will be
>休みだそうです
and for ようです it will be
>休みのようです
Since the ようです version is conjugated correctly, the answer should be 4.