Study Tosa-ben with us! ④

This time we teach you “・・・nikaaran”. This comes at the end of a sentence and means may or perhaps. Here are two example sentences.

“Kumo ga detekita. Konban ame ga furu nikaaran.”
“Kare wa saikin genki ga naine. Kanojo ni furareta nikaaran.”

The former sentence means “It’s getting cloudy. It might rain tonight.” The latter means “He hasn’t had much energy recently. Perhaps he got dumped by his girlfriend.”

You may get confused if you hear “・・・ga kawaran nikaaran.” Does this expression mean “it might not change” or “it might change”? Even tosa-ben speakers can answer!

Taken from vol.25 (August & September, 2008. Fruit Picking in Kochi)