N4 grammar

〜に違いない

It must be

Formation

に違いない is the strongest of the guessing patterns, close to English it must be. You use it when the evidence leaves you no room for doubt. It leans formal, so speech often prefers きっと with a plain sentence.

Examples

〜に違いない is marked in each sentence. Tap any word for its dictionary entry.

  1. She must have sensed something odd.

  2. One must be an executive in some company.

  3. He must have been ill.

  4. The fire must have broken out after the staff had gone home.

  5. The farmers must be happy to hear that.

The explanation is ours, written for this site. Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), each machine-checked to actually contain the pattern. Furigana is generated automatically, so a rare reading may be imperfect.