Lesson 33 - Probably cold today

When talking about weather, you can replace desu with deshou to change the sentence to probably. For example, if you wanted to say "It will probably be humid", you would say Mushi atsui deshou. For now, though, deshou can only be used with weather. You will learn of other situations later. You can also change it to "Do you think it will be humid?" by saying Mushi atsui deshou ka.

Another word to know is why. Why is naze. It can be said as Naze desu ka to formally ask why, but you can also just say Naze? in the same way you say Nani?. When asking why you did something, simply put naze in the beginning of the sentence. For example, when asking, "Why didn't you do your Japanese homework?" you would ask Naze anata no nihongo no shukudai o shimasen deshita ka.

One more word you will learn is kara, which means because. Now, kara is pretty tricky. While we usually say "I will go home because I am cold", with the reason coming last, the reason always comes first in a Japanese sentence and is ended with kara. For example, if I were to say Watashi ga samui desu kara kaerimasu, I would be saying "Because I am cold, I will go home." The reason is always first and is always marked bykara, which is tough to learn at first.
Let's have Chiyo and Masako have another conversation.

Chiyo: Konnichi wa, Masa-chan!
Masako: Konnichi wa, Chi-chan. Naze kinou TENISU o shimasen deshita ka.
Chiyo: Ame desu kara TENISU o shimasen deshita.
Masako: Aa, sou desu ne. Ashita samui deshou ka.
Chiyo: Iie, suzushii deshou.

Here, Masako asks, "Why didn't you play tennis yesterday?" Chiyo replies, "Because it was raining, I did not play tennis." Masako replies Sou desu ne, which is like an informal way of saying sou desu ka. Masako then asks if she thinks it will be cold tomorrow. Chiyo replies it will probably be cool.
Two more little words you might want to add to your vocabulary list are SHIKAGO, Japlish for Chicago, and BOSUTON, the Japlish for Boston.

Vocabulary Review
でしょう Deshou- probably
なぜ Naze- why
から Kara- because
シカゴ SHIKAGO- Chicago
ボストン BOSUTON- Boston