LEARN + JAPANESE / Note 92 JLPT N4

Might Be (〜かもしれない)

かもしれない attaches to the plain form of a verb, adjective, or noun and marks a statement as merely possible, somewhere well below だろう in how confident it sounds.

In Real Life
かもしれない sits at the low end of a certainty scale that also includes だろう and でしょう, which you already know. だろう leans toward “probably,” かもしれない just says “possible, no more than that,” a genuinely open guess rather than an educated one.
In Real Life
Nouns and な-adjectives drop だ entirely before かもしれない: 家だ becomes 家かもしれません, never 家だかもしれません. Verbs and い-adjectives attach in their plain form with no change, and かもしれない itself never conjugates to match politeness, only しれません softens it for polite speech.

Vocabulary

JapaneseEnglish