1995
Here's another habitual mistake I make. I'm looking at a sign for a restaurant
with pictures of great food. So I remark to my friend:

> 美味{おい}しいそう、ね？

... intending to mean, "that looks good, don't you think?" (more literally:
"[that] seems delicious, huh?"). I'm going to make "good" synonymous with
"delicious" for `美味{おい}しい` in this question, by the way, because it's more
natural for me to say food is "good".

My friend laughs, though, and tells me that by using `そう` in this case, I'm
saying that I've heard or been informed that it is good. It does not mean that
I am directly assessing the picture for myself in that moment.

Yet, when I look up in the dictionary, one of the definitions of `そう` is
"seems" or "looks like". There's no mention of hearsay.

I've also looked at some related
[questions](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/850/what-exactly-
does-an-adjective-stem-mean) on this site, but I'm still left confused. In the
answer to that question, it says "`そう` emphasizes evidence of the senses
rather than general _seeming_." Well... if that's true, then shouldn't my eyes
looking at the picture be the evidence of the sense I need to justify using
`そう`?

First, what should I say if I want to say "that looks good"? `「美味{おい}しいみたい」`?
That seems like I am saying that the presentation might be deceptive, as in
"that might be good, but that's just the way the picture is, and who knows
about the real thing." `「美味{おい}しいかな」`? That makes it sound like I'm seeking
confirmation, as in "I wonder if that's good?" `「美味{おい}しいだろ」`? That sounds to
me like I'm asking the question "does that look good?"

Second, I feel like I hear Japanese around me saying `「美味{おい}しいそう」` all the
time. If it involves some hearsay, then is it only used as a confirmation
after someone has made a previous statement? Like so:

> 昨日{きのう}、めちゃうまいビーガン店{みせ}に行った！ ("Yesterday I went to an insanely awesome vegan
> restaurant!")
>
> 美味{おい}しいそう！私{わたし}も行{い}きたい！ ("That sounds good! I want to go too!")

Please help me kill this bad habit.

_Please no technical linguistic terms. Thanks!_
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-07-17T05:41:16.797
1994
2012-01-31T06:50:12.517
2017-04-13T12:43:44.397
-1
119
question
word-choice grammar
Why does そう in 「美味しいそう」 not mean "seem" the way I think it should?
I believe the issue can be explained more simply than you might think. ～そうだ
has two different meanings. One is, indeed, to report hearsay. The other is to
make a judgement or conjecture based on a visual cue or observation.

_They have an extremely similar, but slightly different formation._

For i-adjectives, if you drop the い at the end, you are using the "visual cue
/ observation" version of ～そうだ. If you leave the trailing い in the word, you
are reporting hearsay.

When you say

> 美味しいそう

you are thus saying "I heard this place was good." On the other hand, if you
say

> 美味しそう

you are saying "This place looks good."

This is especially tricky for い adjectives whose penultimate kana also ends
with an "i". It's for a similar reason that I still can't break the habit of
saying かわくない instead of かわいくない 「可愛くない」.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-07-17T05:52:14.733
1995
2011-07-17T05:52:14.733
483
1994
answer