Particle: んだって

The use of んだって is a quoting particle often used in casual conversations. It is a contraction of the casual forms of three different particles: the の particle, commonly known as the explanatory particle; です in it's informal form, the だ copula, for declaring a statement similar to "it is"; and って the casual form of the と particle used for marking quotations.

んだ is a contraction of のだ which itself is shortened from のです and when used with the casual って for quoting, んだって indicates that the speaker is explaining something they heard by hearsay. This explanatory tone is only given by the speaker and not when referring to the source of the hearsay.

Even though the ん may be dropped, be careful not to confuse this with だって (datte), the casual form of でも used to express "even", "even if", "it is because" etc.

How to use んだってcasual

んだって (n'datte) is used to provide emphasis or convey hearsay information. It indicates that the speaker heard or was informed about a previous statement. It appears after a noun or noun phrase to say something similar to "I hear that..." or "it is said that...".

Here are the four types of predicates in Japanese and how to use them with んだって:

• Verb (informal) + んだって
  e.g: ... kureru n'datte
• Noun + な + んだって
  e.g: ... sarudoshi na n'datte
• na-adjective + な + んだって
  e.g: ... suki na n'datte
• i-adjective + んだって
  e.g: ... tsuyoi n'datte

Here are some examples using real Japanese sentences of んだって in context taken from the video game ポケットモンスター Let's Go! (Pokemon Let's Go!).

The following sentence praises Green's strength and mentions his past achievement of defeating the Elite Four of the Pokémon League many years ago. The use of んだって adds emphasis and indicates that the information was heard from someone else.

The following sentence reveals that the Gym Leader of the Tokiwa Gym is unknown, with the hearsay information conveyed by んだって to suggest that the speaker heard or was informed about it.

The following sentence conveys that the speaker heard from someone else that the copycat girl likes Clefairy and he expresses his intention to catch one so he can show it to her.

The following sentence discusses Pikachu's Electric type abilities, emphasising its strength against Water types and Flying types. The use of や indicates an incomplete set expressing that there are other types of Pokemon that Pikachu is strong against but not mentioned such as steel and other electric types.

Ending with だって

だって at the end of a sentence is not to be confused with the casual form of でも but is actually んだって without the explanatory tone of ん.

Because we have dropped the ん, we are no longer explaining something that was heard by hearsay but rather expressing the unexpectedness, surprise or criticism towards what is being quoted. As an example, let's look at a sentence from the game 星のカービィディスカバリー (Kirby and the Forgotten Land).

This sentence introduces a sense of surprise conveyed by だ; the use of the casual quotation particle, って, names the object of surprise. エフィリン (Efilin) has only ever heard about Kirby's star shaped world by name only and rather than explaining what he has heard about Kirby's world using んだ, he is stating the simple fact that it is called "Popstar".

Additional Notes

Related Lessons and References

Here is a list of other pages as a reference of what else you may be interested in reading: