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Consider the situation in which when I left my house in the morning for working, I found the street was wet. I think the following expression is ungrammatical.

昨日雨が降ったそうだ。

Because ~そうだ (conjecture) must represent event that will happen in the future or represent the current state of something or someone.

昨日雨が降りそうだった。

does not make sense as well, right?

Question

So what is the correct expression to say the following?

There might be raining yesterday.

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    But 昨日雨が降ったそうだ means "[someone] told me that it rained yesterday."
    – oals
    Dec 19, 2016 at 10:47
  • @oals: I am not talking about "hearsay". Dec 19, 2016 at 11:16
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    "There might be raining yesterday" does not make much sense. Did you mean to say "It might have been raining yesterday"? Dec 19, 2016 at 17:20

1 Answer 1

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You can use ~ようだ that means "seeming to be" or "appearing to be":

昨日雨が降ったようだ

It seems that it rained yesterday.


By the way, 昨日雨が降りそうだった。 is still a valid sentence which means "it seemed likely to rain yesterday."

This is valid because "雨が降りそう" was a conjecture about future or present at the time it was made.

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