〜そうだ (Hearsay): 'I Heard That…' Reporting What You're Told

The judgement it makes: you're relaying, not claiming

This そうだ is the hearsay (伝聞, denbun) marker. It signals a specific stance: the fact you're stating isn't yours. You read it, heard it, or were told it, and now you're passing it on. It's the spoken-and-written equivalent of "I hear…," "I heard that…," or "they say…" — the speaker steps back and points to someone else as the source.

Because the report belongs to someone else, そうだ itself carries no opinion and no tense. It attaches to a full plain-form clause and never changes form: there's no past そうだった or negative そうじゃない in the hearsay meaning. Any past-ness or negation lives inside the clause, before そうだ.

What it's built on: a named source and a full plain form

The "evidence" behind hearsay そうだ is simply someone else's word — so the grammar leans on two things: a clean plain-form clause to carry the reported fact, and (usually) an explicit source to show where you got it.

Start with the build. Take a clause in plain form and add そうだ (or polite そうです). The one connector to watch: verbs and い-adjectives attach directly, but nouns and な-adjectives need だ first.

Note that 元気だそうだ ("I hear they're well") and 学生だそうだ ("I hear they're a student") keep the だ — dropping it changes the meaning entirely (see the そう-vs-そう section below).

Because the clause holds its own tense and polarity, you can report past, negative, and past-negative facts freely — そうだ stays put:

Now the source. Hearsay そうだ almost begs you to name where the information came from. The usual partner is 〜によると ("according to…"), or the softer 〜の話では ("from what … says"). Lead with one of these and the listener knows immediately that you're reporting, not asserting:

How sure it sounds: hearsay そう vs looks-like そう

The certainty question here isn't a ladder so much as a fork: there are two そう, and they mean opposite kinds of things. Hearsay そうだ says "someone told me this is so"; looks-like (様態) そうだ says "this is my own guess from what I can see." Telling them apart is mostly about what そう attaches to.

The signals to watch:

• Hearsay attaches to a full plain form: い-adjective keeps its い (おいしいそうだ), nouns/な-adjectives take だ (元気だそうだ). It never conjugates.
• Looks-like attaches to a stem: the い is dropped (おいし‐そう), な-adjectives lose だ (元気そう), and it behaves like a な-adjective itself, so it can conjugate (おいしそうなケーキ, おいしそうだった).

Hearsay そうだ also has close cousins for reporting and guessing: らしい ("apparently," often hearsay-flavored) and ようだ/みたい ("it seems," based on evidence you can point to). Where そうだ is straightforward, sourced reporting, those shade toward inference. To see the whole family side by side, compare ようだ vs らしい vs みたい.

Watch-outs

Nearly every hearsay そうだ error is really the same slip — the い or だ that separates it from looks-like そう — showing up in a few disguises:

• Conjugating そうだ. There's no 雨だそうだった for "I heard it would rain." Push the tense inside the clause instead: 雨だったそうだ ("I hear it was raining").
• Dropping だ after a noun or な-adjective. "I hear they're a student" is 学生だそうだ; bare 学生そうだ wrongly reads as "looks like a student."
• Mixing up the two そう. 安いそうだ = "I hear it's cheap"; 安そうだ = "it looks cheap." Always check whether the い/だ is kept (hearsay) or dropped (looks-like).
• Forgetting the source. Hearsay そうだ sounds bare on its own; open with 〜によると or 〜の話では so it reads as reporting, not a flat assertion.

The short version

• Plain clause + そうだ = "I hear / they say that…" (reported information).
• It never conjugates — tense and negation go inside the clause.
• Nouns and な-adjectives take だ before そうだ (学生だそうだ, 元気だそうだ).
• Often paired with 〜によると ("according to"). Polite form: そうです.
• Don't confuse it with looks-like そう (おいしそう), which attaches to a stem and can conjugate.

Practice it