Expressing Speculation & Probability

A graded scale: devoir for confident inference, futur for present guesses, il se peut que for weak possibility — Hindi's होगा covers the first two, and हो सकता है कि matches the third exactly

French grades certainty across three different tools: devoir + infinitif for confident inference (il doit être fatigué); the futur simple used to speculate about the present itself (il sera 15h, 'it's probably 3pm', the futur de conjecture); and il se peut que + subjonctif for weaker, open possibility. Hindi collapses the first two into a single tool: होगा, technically the future tense of होना, is used constantly for confident present inference — वह थका हुआ होगा works for both 'he must be tired' and, in the right context, 'he will probably be tired', doing the job of both devoir and the futur de conjecture at once. For weaker possibility, Hindi reaches for हो सकता है कि or शायद, both of which pull in the same Hindi subjunctive you built in Lesson 40 (हो सकता है कि कल बारिश हो, बारिश हो being subjunctive) — a direct match for il se peut que forcing the subjonctif in French. So where the confident-inference tool needs to be relearned as new French grammar, the weak-possibility tool is one you can carry over almost directly from Hindi.