Expressing Speculation & Probability
Expressing Speculation & Probability
The modal verbs you learned back in A1 for permission and necessity take on a second, 'epistemic' life at this level: expressing how likely you think something is, rather than what's allowed or required.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
müssen and dürfte used for certainty and probability, not obligation
Er müsste jetzt zu Hause sein. (He should/must be home by now — a guess, not an order.) / Das dürfte stimmen. (That's probably right.)
He should be home by now. / That's probably right.
You already know müssen for necessity (er muss arbeiten, 'he has to work') and dürfen for permission — but in this 'epistemic' use, the same verbs express how confident the speaker is in a guess. müsste (Konjunktiv II of müssen) suggests strong logical certainty ('this must be the case, based on what I know'), while dürfte (Konjunktiv II of dürfen) is a slightly softer, very common way to say 'probably'. English doesn't reuse its permission/obligation modals this way nearly as systematically, so it's worth treating epistemic müsste/dürfte as their own idiom to learn, distinct from their everyday deontic meanings.
wohl added to the future tense expresses present-tense probability
Er wird wohl zu Hause sein. (He's probably at home.)
He's probably at home.
werden + infinitive normally marks the future tense, but paired with the modal particle wohl, it instead expresses a guess about the present: er wird wohl zu Hause sein doesn't mean 'he will be home' at some future point, it means 'he's probably home right now'. Context and the particle wohl are what signal this is a present-tense guess rather than a genuine future prediction.
False friend alert: eventuell means 'possibly', not 'eventually'
Wir kommen eventuell später. (We might come later.)
We might come later.
eventuell looks like it should mean 'eventually', but it actually means 'possibly/maybe' — closer to English 'potentially'. For the English meaning of 'eventually' (at some point, after a while), German uses schließlich or irgendwann instead. This mismatch trips up English speakers constantly, since the words look so alike but point in different directions.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| vermutlich | fair-MOOT-likh | presumably |
| wahrscheinlich | vahr-SHYN-likh | probably |
| möglicherweise | MUR-glikh-er-vy-zeh | possibly |
| es könnte sein, dass... | es KURN-teh zyn, dahs | it could be that... |
| es dürfte ... sein | es DEWRF-teh ... zyn | it's probably... |
| das muss ... sein | dahs moos ... zyn | that must be... |
| angeblich | AHN-gayp-likh | allegedly |
| offenbar | OF-en-bar | apparently/evidently |
| anscheinend | ahn-SHY-nent | apparently/seemingly |
| es ist davon auszugehen, dass... | es ist DAH-fon OWS-tsoo-gay-en, dahs | it can be assumed that... |
| ich vermute, dass... | ikh fair-MOO-teh, dahs | I suspect that... |
| eventuell | eh-ven-too-EL | possibly (false friend: not 'eventually') |