～そうだ (Hearsay): How to Say "I Heard That" in Japanese

Hearsay ～そうだ (伝聞 denbun) is the Japanese suffix for reporting information you got from an outside source, by hearing or reading it. It is the equivalent of English "they say that..." or "I hear that...".¹² It is one of the first evidential suffixes a learner meets after learning the plain form. Its strict shape sets it apart from the look-alike "appearance" reading.

Overview

Hearsay そうだ positions the speaker as a relay, not the original witness. When you say something そうだ, you are passing on what someone else said, wrote, or reported, not asserting it from your own observation.²

In traditional grammar, this is the 伝聞 ("reported / hearsay") reading of そうだ. It is kept distinct from the 様態 ("appearance / manner") reading. Teramura's descriptive grammar organizes そうだ, ようだ, and らしい around these modality categories.³

What "hearsay" means here

The basis of hearsay そうだ is always something heard or read, never something the speaker reasoned out or witnessed directly. The information comes from an external source, and そうだ marks that the speaker is merely conveying it.¹²

田中たなかさんは来月らいげつ引ひっ越こすそうだ。⁴
"I hear Mr. Tanaka is moving next month."

A source-naming frame often sits in front of the clause, but the そうだ at the end is what marks the whole statement as relayed.

ニュースによると、きのう、北海道ほっかいどうで地震じしんがあったそうだ。⁵
"According to the news, there was an earthquake in Hokkaido yesterday."

Where it sits among the evidentials

Hearsay そうだ belongs to the indirect-evidential cluster alongside らしい, ようだ, and みたい. In other words, it helps show how the speaker knows the information. Each of these forms attaches after the tense-aspect core of a clause and marks the speaker's evidential stance toward it. Aoki treats らしい, そうだ, and ようだ as markers of indirect evidentiality in Japanese: claims reached by hearsay or inference rather than direct assertion.⁶

Within that cluster, Makino and Tsutsui split the set by evidence type: a "hearing group" (hearsay そうだ and らしい) and a "seeing group" (appearance そう, ようだ, みたい). Hearsay そうだ belongs to the hearing group because its basis is something heard or read.¹

そうだ is a faithful relay, らしい is a judgment

Compared with its nearest neighbor らしい, hearsay そうだ is a neutral relay of a source. らしい mixes in the speaker's own judgment and carries weaker, vaguer evidential force.⁷⁸ The full side-by-side comparison belongs to the dedicated comparison hub.

Form: plain form + そうだ

The attachment rule

Hearsay そうだ attaches to the plain form (普通形) of the entire clause. The clause keeps its own tense and polarity intact, and そうだ is simply appended after it.¹⁸

Because そうだ attaches to the complete plain form, a noun-predicate or な-adjective clause keeps its だ before そうだ. This plain-form attachment is the key contrast with the appearance reading, which attaches to a bare stem.¹²⁸

今晩こんばん雨あめが降ふるそうだ。⁹
"I hear it'll rain tonight."

Formation table by part of speech

The four parts of speech attach as shown below. Tense and polarity appear inside the clause, before そうだ.¹⁸¹⁰

Part of speech	Plain-form clause	+ hearsay そうだ	Gloss
Verb (present)	降る	降るそうだ	"I hear it will rain" 10
Verb (past)	降った	降ったそうだ	"I hear it rained" 8
Verb (negative)	降らない	降らないそうだ	"I hear it won't rain" 2
い-adjective	おいしい	おいしいそうだ	"I hear it's delicious" 110
い-adjective (negative)	おもしろくない	おもしろくないそうだ	"I hear it isn't interesting" 2
な-adjective (keeps だ)	静かだ	静かだそうだ	"I hear it's quiet" 28
Noun (keeps だ)	学生だ	学生だそうだ	"I hear he's a student" 18

For verbs and い-adjectives, the plain form already stands alone, so そうだ simply follows. For nouns and な-adjectives, the plain form ends in だ, and that だ stays before そうだ.¹²⁸

あの人ひとは人間国宝にんげんこくほうだそうです。¹¹
"I hear that person is a Living National Treasure."

Polarity is always carried inside the clause. To report a negative, negate the verb or adjective. Do not negate そうだ itself.²⁸

私わたしの授業じゅぎょうはおもしろくないそうです。¹²
"I hear my class isn't interesting."

田中たなかさんはその話はなしは知しらないそうです。¹³
"I hear Mr. Tanaka doesn't know about that."

Polite ending: そうです

In polite register, そうだ becomes そうです. The politeness appears only on the final そうだ → そうです. It does not change anything inside the quoted clause.²¹⁴

The clause stays plain even in a polite sentence: 雨が降るそうです keeps the plain 降る inside, with politeness carried only by そうです.¹⁴

天気てんき予報よほうによると、明日あしたは晴はれだそうです。¹⁵
"According to the forecast, I hear it'll be clear tomorrow."

新聞しんぶんによると、日本にほんの人口じんこうが減へっているそうです。¹⁶
"According to the newspaper, I hear Japan's population is decreasing."

The disambiguation: hearsay そうだ vs appearance そう

Stem-attach (appearance) vs plain-form-attach (hearsay)

The same written string, そう, has two distinct grammatical readings: 伝聞 (hearsay) そうだ and 様態 (appearance) そう. You can tell them apart by what そう attaches to.³²

Hearsay そうだ attaches to the plain form of the clause (おいしいそうだ, 降るそうだ). Appearance そう attaches to a bare stem, the part left after an ending is removed (おいしそうだ from the い-adjective stem おいし-, 降りそうだ from the ます-stem 降り-).¹²⁸

The meaning split tracks evidence type. Appearance そう is the speaker's own conclusion from direct, usually visual signs ("it looks ~"), while hearsay そうだ relays external information ("I hear ~").²⁸

Feature	Hearsay 伝聞 そうだ	Appearance 様態 そう(だ)
Attaches to	plain form (普通形)	stem (い-adj stem, verb ます-stem) 12
い-adjective example	おいしいそうだ "I hear it's tasty"	おいしそうだ "it looks tasty" 28
Verb example	降るそうだ "I hear it'll rain"	降りそうだ "it looks about to rain" 28
Evidence source	heard / read (external)	seen / sensed (speaker's own) 28
Noun-predicate	学生だそうだ (keeps だ)	(appearance そう does not attach to a bare noun) 1

The minimal pair below differs by a single mora, a Japanese timing unit roughly like a beat. That small difference carries the entire meaning.

このスープはおいしいそうだ。¹⁷
"I hear this soup is tasty."

このスープはおいしそうだ。¹⁸
"This soup looks tasty."

A single mora flips the meaning

おいしいそうだ relays what you were told; おいしそうだ reports what you see. The appearance reading (様態 そう) is a separate concept and is not the subject of this article. Treat it as the contrast partner only.

The quick test

The test is morphological, meaning it depends on word form. If the full dictionary / plain form appears before そう (降る, おいしい, 学生だ), the reading is hearsay. If a bare stem appears before そう (降り, おいし, 元気), the reading is appearance.¹²

A noun or な-adjective predicate makes the reading clear at once. Hearsay keeps だ (学生だそうだ), while appearance そう does not attach to a bare noun at all. Appearance for a state instead uses the な-adjective stem (元気そう), not the noun.¹²

The two readings can be shown as a single fork from the string そう, split by what comes before it.

今いまにも雨あめが降ふりそうだ。¹⁹
"It looks like it's about to rain any moment."

天気てんき予報よほうによると、明日あしたは雨あめが降ふるそうだ。²⁰
"According to the forecast, I hear it'll rain tomorrow."

Nuance and usage contexts

Marking the source

Hearsay そうだ is often paired with a source-marking frame that names where the information came from. The standard frames are ～によると and ～によれば ("according to ~"), and ～の話では ("from ~'s account").²⁸

A typical structure is [source] によると、[plain clause] そうだ, as in 天気予報によると…降るそうだ.² The frames ～によると and ～によれば are close in meaning. ～によると is more common in speech, and both name the information source that そうだ then relays.⁸

彼かれの話はなしでは、問題もんだいはないそうです。²¹
"From what he says, there's no problem."

ニュースによれば、あの事件じけんの犯人はんにんが捕つかまったそうだ。²²
"According to the news, I hear the culprit in that case was caught."

Register and tone

Hearsay そうだ is a neutral relay, but it often suggests that the speaker sees the information as worth passing on. The Japan Foundation describes it as conveying the speaker's feeling of wanting to tell the news quickly or of treating it as valuable information.²

It is register-neutral and sits comfortably in both speech and writing.⁷⁸

そうだ relays more faithfully than らしい

Compared with らしい, hearsay そうだ relays the source more faithfully and with less of the speaker's own judgment. らしい mixes in inference and reads as vaguer ("apparently"), while そうだ reads as a cleaner "I hear that ~". Compared with the written ということだ, hearsay そうだ is the more everyday relay.⁷⁸

3D映画えいがはおもしろいそうだよ。²³
"I hear 3D movies are interesting."

Good to know

The irreversibility: そうだ has no negative and no past of its own

Hearsay そうだ is morphologically fixed. In the hearsay reading, it has no past form, no negative form, and no interrogative form. ×そうだった, ×そうではない, and ×そうですか are all blocked.⁸

To report a past or negative fact, put the tense or polarity inside the clause: a reported past is 降ったそうだ, and a reported negative is 降らないそうだ. The reporting frame そうだ itself stays unchanged.²⁸

去年きょねんの夏なつはとても暑あつかったそうだ。²⁴
"I hear last summer was very hot."

Hearsay そうだ is also not used in questions. ×おいしいそうですか is blocked, while the appearance reading does accept questions (おいしそうですか?). This is one more way the two readings diverge: appearance そう(だ) inflects fully like a な-adjective, but hearsay そうだ does not.²⁸

山田やまださんは今日きょう来こないそうだ。²⁵
"I hear Mr. Yamada isn't coming today."

Why the noun and な-adjective keep だ

A noun-predicate or な-adjective clause keeps its だ before hearsay そうだ (学生だそうだ, 静かだそうだ). This is because hearsay そうだ attaches to the whole plain form, and the plain form of such a clause already ends in だ.¹²⁸

This is the visible sign of the plain-form rule and another quick way to disambiguate. Appearance そう attaches to a stem, so it never produces 学生だそう, while hearsay must produce 学生だそうだ.¹²

あの二人ふたりは来年らいねん結婚けっこんするそうだ。²⁶
"I hear those two are getting married next year."

この辺あたりは昔むかしとても静しずかだったそうだ。²⁷
"I hear this area used to be very quiet."

そうだ vs って vs という

In casual speech, the same relaying job is often done by the quotative って and the framing という rather than そうだ. ということだ is the more written, formal relay. Hearsay そうだ sits in between as the everyday, register-neutral relay.⁸ The dedicated treatment of the quotative って and という reporting devices is out of scope here.

Mnemonic for the two そう

Full word equals full report (hearsay). Chopped word equals a guess from looking (appearance). The plain-form-vs-stem attachment rule is the single reliable test, so the length of what precedes そう is the cue: 降るそうだ and おいしいそうだ (full form, "I heard") versus 降りそう and おいしそう (chopped, "it looks").¹²

See also

• ～そうだ (Appearance): How to Say "Looks Like…" in Japanese
• Inferential Suffixes in Japanese: ～そう, ～よう, ～らしい, ～みたい Compared
• Polite vs. Plain Japanese: です/ます vs. だ (丁寧体・普通体)
• The によって Compound Particle: By Means of, Depending on
• Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Japanese: A Map
• The Plain Past た-Form in Japanese: Past, Perfective, and Beyond

References

Footnotes

1. Makino, Seiichi, and Michio Tsutsui. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. Tokyo: The Japan Times, 1989. (hearsay そうだ entry.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

2. 国際交流基金 (The Japan Foundation). 「文法を楽しく『そうだ／ようだ／らしい』(1)」. https://www.jpf.go.jp/j/project/japanese/teach/tsushin/grammar/201012.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷

3. Teramura, Hideo (寺村秀夫). Nihongo no shintakusu to imi (日本語のシンタクスと意味), Vol. 2. Tokyo: くろしお出版, 1984. ↩ ↩²

4. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay そうだ on a plain present verb; the plain-form + そうだ hearsay relay is attested in ¹¹⁰. ↩

5. Sentence verified against the 伝聞 reference grammar ⁸, where 「ニュースによると、きのう、北海道で地震があったそうだ」 illustrates the によると source frame with a past clause inside; quoted as given. ↩

6. Aoki, Haruo. "Evidentials in Japanese." In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, ed. Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols, pp. 223–238. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986. ↩

7. Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko. "Semantic analysis of evidential markers in Japanese: Rashii, yooda and sooda." Functions of Language 17, no. 2 (2010): 153–180. https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.17.2.01asa ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. 日本語参照文法. 「35 そうだ_伝聞」. https://www.sansyo-bunpo.net/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴

9. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay そうだ on a plain present verb (降る); the plain-form attachment is attested in ¹¹⁰, and the form 「今晩雨が降るそうだ」 is corroborated by Bunpro's 「今晩雨が降るそうだ」 example ¹⁰. ↩

10. Bunpro. Grammar point そうだ (hearsay). https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86%E3%81%A0 (limitation) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

11. Sentence verified against ²/¹-class material: noun-predicate hearsay keeps だ (人間国宝だそうです); the noun + だ + そうだ rule is attested in ¹⁸. ↩

12. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay on a negated い-adjective (おもしろくない + そうです); the in-clause negation rule is attested in ²⁸. ↩

13. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay on a negated verb (知らない + そうです); the in-clause negation rule is attested in ²⁸. ↩

14. スリーエーネットワーク編著『みんなの日本語 初級II』. 3A Corporation, Lesson 47 (〜そうです 伝聞). ↩ ↩²

15. Natural sentence illustrating polite そうです with a noun predicate keeping だ (晴れだそうです) under a によると frame; the polite ending and the noun + だ rule are attested in ²¹⁴. ↩

16. Sentence verified against textbook-syllabus material for Lesson 47 ¹⁴ and the によると frame ²: 「新聞によると、日本の人口が減っているそうです」; the source frame + plain progressive clause + そうです is attested in ²¹⁴. ↩

17. Natural sentence illustrating the hearsay reading on a plain い-adjective (おいしい + そうだ), the minimal pair partner to ¹⁸; the plain-form attachment is attested in ¹²⁸. ↩

18. Natural sentence illustrating the appearance reading on the い-adjective stem (おいし + そう), the minimal pair partner to ¹⁷; the stem-attachment appearance rule is attested in ¹²⁸. (Appearance そう is out of scope; shown only for contrast.) ↩ ↩²

19. Natural sentence illustrating appearance そう on a verb ます-stem (降り + そう, "about to happen"); the stem-attachment appearance rule is attested in ²⁸. (Out of scope; contrast only.) ↩

20. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay そうだ with an explicit source (天気予報によると); the source-frame + plain-form hearsay relay is attested in ²¹⁰. ↩

21. Sentence verified against the imabi-class and reference-grammar material describing the Nの話では frame; 「彼の話では、問題はないそうです」 illustrates の話では + in-clause negation; the source frame and in-clause negation are attested in ²⁸. ↩

22. Sentence corroborated by the によれば source-frame material ⁸: 「ニュースによれば、あの事件の犯人が捕まったそうだ」 illustrates によれば + a past clause inside; the source frame and in-clause past are attested in ²⁸. ↩

23. Sentence verified against the Japan Foundation material ², which contrasts 「3D映画はおもしろいそうだ／らしいよ」 to show そうだ and らしい conveying nearly identical hearsay; quoted with the そうだ variant. ↩

24. Natural sentence illustrating in-clause past on an い-adjective (暑かった + そうだ), showing tense lives inside, not as ×そうだった; the no-past-on-そうだ constraint is attested in ⁸. ↩

25. Natural sentence illustrating in-clause negation on a verb (来ない + そうだ), showing polarity lives inside, not as ×そうではない; the no-negative-on-そうだ constraint is attested in ²⁸. ↩

26. Natural sentence illustrating hearsay on a plain present verb with no だ needed (結婚する + そうだ); corroborated by Bunpro-class example phrasing ¹⁰ and the plain-form rule ¹. ↩

27. Natural sentence illustrating a な-adjective clause with in-clause past (静かだった + そうだ); the な-adjective keeps だ pattern and the in-clause tense rule are attested in ²⁸. ↩