Conviction
“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.” – Thomas Carlyle
The use of つもり to mean “conviction” is pretty interesting. You learned a moment before that the noun つもり means “plan” as well as “conviction.” Now the question is how do you use it to mean conviction.
When you’re using つもり to mean “conviction” you can use it differently as well. It can be used with nouns, adjectives, and past tense verbs (though present/future tense verbs don’t really work, including negative present/future tense). All this probably doesn’t make much sense though – we should look at the rules that go along with this.
Verbs
With verbs, when つもり is used in past tense, it means “conviction.” Someone or something is convinced they did something.
aわたし すし を たべた つもりだ
Convinced I ate sushi
Adjectives
Adjectives are the same thing. Someone or something is convinced that they are something (i.e. described as something, like “strong” or “cool” or “funny,” etc. Let’s look at an いadjective first.
aわたし は たのしい つもりだ
I’m convinced that I’m fun
And なadjectives:
aきれいな つもりだ
Convinced someone is pretty
Nouns
aわたし は せんせい の つもりだ
I’m convinced I’m a teacher/doctor
Basically, in order to get these ideas stuck in your head, you should remember that present/future verbs with つもり will mean “plan to.” Everything else means “convinced that.”
Really, though, you’ll see the “plan to” version of つもり way more often. Other uses are less common, though they’re common enough that I’m going over it with you now. We’re going to practice this a little bit, but mostly with the intention of helping you to remember which one is which, so you can recognize it. I don’t expect you to use the “conviction” つもり as much as other.
So, once you know the difference between the two (planning is for present/future verbs, conviction is for everything else), move on to the next page, where we’ll get to practicing!