To Think About Nouns

“I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.” – Albert Einstein

You haven’t really seen と 思います in action yet, so let’s start things off simply, using nouns. In previous pages, you saw the following:

_______________ と 思います。

which means…

I think _________________.

I’m guessing you’ve already surmised how to make this work, but just in case, here’s how you do it:

The (blank) spot above represents your sentence. You already know how to state opinions, facts, etc., using Japanese. All you need to do is put something in the blank spot then add と 思います or と 思う to it, and you’ll have yourself an “I think” sentence. For example:

aがくせい　だ　と　思います
I think (he) is a student

aボビーさん　は　がくせい　だ　と　思います
I think Bobby is a student

aボビーさん　は　せんせい　だ　と　思います
I think Bobby is a teacher

Now, there’s a reason we reviewed casual form earlier in the chapter. When you use と 思います you need to make whatever comes right before the と into casual form. With nouns, that’s です→だ. So, as you can see in the sentences above, they all use だ right before the と思います.

Remember, in Japanese it’s the last bit of grammar (i.e. whatever’s on the end) that dictates how formal or casual a sentence is. The stuff in the middle can (and often has to be) casual, but none of that actually matters until you end your sentence. In the case of the examples above, the と思います is dictating that it’s a neutral/polite sentence. If the 思います was an 思う, then it’d be a casual sentence. The だ always stays a だ, either way).

So, for example:

aわたし　の　くるま　だ　と　思います
I think it is my car (polite/neutral)

aわたし　の　くるま　だ　と　思う
I think it’s my car (casual, because of the 思う)

aともだち　だ　と　思う
I think (he’s) a friend (casual)

aともだち　だ　と　思います
I think (he is) a friend (polite/neutral)

Now, it’s not just present/future tense that works like this. For other noun tenses, you’d use だった, じゃない, and じゃなかった.

aわたし　の　くるま　だった　と　思う
I think it was my car

aわたし　の　くるま　じゃない　と　思う
I think it is not my car

aわたし　の　くるま　じゃなかった　と　思う
I think it wasn’t my car

Now, if you notice, we’ve always kept 思う as 思う, nothing else. That makes a difference too (if it’s past tense, negative, etc), and you know how to do all that. What is the meaning of these sentences? Make sure you pay extra close attention to the tenses.

aカリフォルニア州　だった　と　思った

I thought it was (the state of) California.

a西　じゃなかった　だ　と　思った

I thought it wasn’t West

a牛肉　だ　と　思わない

I don’t think it is beef

a何　だ　と　思う？

What do you think it is?

a皮肉　じゃない　と　思った

I thought it wasn’t sarcasm

You can change 思う to 思わない, 思わなかった, and 思った to change what you thought (or didn’t think, or don’t think) about something. We’ll keep practicing this with the adjectives and verbs as you continue along, so let’s do just that!

By finishing this page, you’ve learned how to use と思う with nouns. You’ve also learned about different tenses of と思う and how it changes the meaning of your sentences

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