Evidence / Source Signal
How does the speaker know?
Significado
A signal that marks whether information is seen, heard, inferred, assumed, reported, remembered, or generally known.
Como identificar
Ask whether the sentence shows the source of knowledge.
Exemplos
apparently|I heard|it seems|they say
I heard that|apparently true|it looks like
Apparently, the train is late.
Visual guide
claim: the train is late
^
evidence layer:
how does speaker know?
I heard / it seems / apparently
Apparently, the train is late.
Evidence choices: seen -> direct I heard -> heard they say -> reported it seems -> inferred apparently -> indirect
Vista por língua
Na tua língua
Brazilian Portuguese has no obligatory evidential grammar, but source can be marked with dizem que, parece que, segundo, or pelo visto.
Dizem que vai chover.
They say that it will rain.
Na língua que estás a aprender
Japanese has useful hearsay and inference markers, though not a mandatory evidential system.
電車が遅れているそうです。
I hear that the train is late.
Learners may confuse そうだ for hearsay with そうだ for appearance.
Good transfer potential
This block behaves relatively similarly, so you can transfer intuition more safely between the two languages.