English lesson 6: Logical

“That’s Logical”

In English there are many situations that we don’t have all of the facts and so we have to make assumptions to understand the situation. For example, if you saw a crying child alone in a store you might assume that she is lost and separated from her parents. Assumptions are not facts so sometimes we’re right and sometimes wrong. In any case, we need to be able to talk about this in English and so I think this is a valuable topic to study. We often decide things based on our observations or information we have. For example, in the case of the crying child, the child could have been crying because she was hurt but no injury could be seen. She could have been crying to get attention from her mother, but she was alone. The most logical reason for her crying was that she was lost based on what we could see. This is also sometimes called deductive reasoning or logical conclusion. The pattern for expression logical conclusion is easy. You just use the word “must.” The hard thing for most Japanese is to get past the fact that we are not talking about one of the many other uses of “must” such as in the pattern “have/must to do something.” This “must” is the same word with a totally different meaning. Okay? Good. Here’s an example of logical conclusion based on the crying child story above. “She must be lost.” Notice that the pattern is, must + be + adjective or must + be + noun. Let’s look at some more examples below so you can practice.

Key words:
She must be the winner
He must be hungry
They must be cousins
It must be dangerous
We must be wrong
I must be confused
She must be happy
He must be proud
They must be religious
She must be Japanese

Here are some situational examples:
Example: Two friends
(Casual):
w Why does Steve’s girlfriend cover he mouth when she laughs?
u She must be Japanese.

Example: Two co-workers
(Everyday)
w You were supposed to bring toner for the copier.
u I must be confused. I brought paper.

Example: Boss to manager
(Formal):
w Why can’t she come to the event on Sunday?
u She must be religious.