Page 342 - Basic Japanese

The expression nan to iu before a noun sometimes has the

flavor of ‘just what, just which.’ It’s a somewhat less specific
way to inquire than using dono ‘which’:

何という本ですか。 どの本ですか。

Nan to iu hon desu ka.
Dono hon desu

ka.

Just what book is it? Which book is it?

If you have a certain limited number of possibilities in

mind when you ask ‘which’ or ‘what,’ you will probably say
dono, but if the field is wide open for an answer, you are

more likely to say nan to iu. This expression is sometimes

used as a sort of exclamation ‘What a…!’:

何といういいお天気でしょうね。
Nan to iu ii otenki deshō nē.
My, what a nice day (it seems to be)!

7.3. The plain tentative

When you embed a sentence like iku deshō ‘he’ll probably go’

or itta deshō ‘he probably went,’ you usually change the

polite tentative copula deshō into the corresponding plain
form darō:

行くだろうと思います。

Iku darō to omoimasu.