～べき: "Must/Ought"

Introduction

It's been a while since we talked about giving advice/telling people what they should do. We had ～ほうがいい in Elementary, and ～ばいい in Apprentice, but now it's time for your Adept "should" grammar point: べき.

You wouldn't know this べき, she goes to another school

構成こうせい

• 

  Casual form verbべき
  Example:
  → 税金ぜいきんを払はらうべきだ。
  "We ought to pay taxes.”

First up, a bit about べき's background!

べき is just like any old 助動詞じょどうし, or auxiliary verb

So, to summarize, べき is a 助動詞じょどうし, or auxiliary verb that evolved from classical Japanese. べき can attach to any verb in its dictionary form

べき attached to 勉強べんきょうする to give us 「勉強べんきょうするべき」 ("ought to study"). It's as easy as that!

So what exactly is the point of べき? We can already say that people should do things using ～ほうがいい after all.

Well, compared to ～ほうがいい, べき sounds quite strong. べき essentially indicates that the speaker is offering a strong opinion about what they think someone should do, or how they should behave. It also tends to be used in relation to morals, responsibility, and ethics, making it very similar to the English "ought" indeed!

Let's see some more examples!

This sort of statement relates to morals, and so べき is a good fit. Also, notice how べき is followed by だ. While it will sometimes get dropped in spoken language, you'll almost always see べき followed by だ or です if it comes at the end of a sentence, as this is considered "correct" Japanese.

As you can see, べき is commonly used when dealing with some large responsibility or action, whether it be a universal moral or something that the speaker personally has a strong opinion about.

A common exception to this trend of usage is when we want to make a not-so-important suggestion intentionally sound super strong. For example, reading a book obviously isn't of the same moral significance as protecting the earth, but if we wanted to imply that it was, we could use べき:

This makes the speaker's suggestion sound much stronger and over the top. A regular suggestion of the same kind would simply use ～ほうがいい:

Alternatively, you can use ～だと思おもう to soften べき slightly. This is common when using べき to give advice.

We can also use べき when we are talking about something that we consider to be common sense.

Scenario: Mike didn't show up to bowling with his friends.

It's also possible to use べき to talk about our own actions.

Here, Mike uses だった to turn べき into the past tense. If it had been a more polite scenario, he may have chosen to use でした instead.

するべき vs すべき

When べき attaches to する, you will occasionally see 「すべき」 instead of 「するべき」. There is no difference in meaning here, but すべき tends to be used more in formal contexts, while するべき tends to be used more in conversational contexts. This means that both of the following are possible:

Negative べき (she's in a bad mood)

構成こうせい

• 

  Casual form verbべき(じゃない・ではない)
  Example:
  → 税金ぜいきんを払はらうべきではない。
  "We ought not to pay taxes.”

One tricky thing about べき is that we can't use it in combination with negative verbs*. This means we'll need to make negative べき sentences using じゃない・ではない. Check it out!

In a more casual situation we could use じゃない instead:

*It is possible that you will encounter 「～ないべき」 but combining べき with negative verbs is a recent phenomenon, and still isn't considered "correct" Japanese. So take the following example sentence with a grammatical grain of salt.

Alternatively, if you want to sound like Shakespeare, you can use べからず instead:

But yeah, people don't really use this nowadays, so you probably won't encounter it outside of 時代劇じだいげき ("period dramas"), or occasionally signs that say something like example 3.4, or this:

Or perhaps the odd expression like this one:

初心しょしん refers to one's initial intentions, or an inexperienced/beginner spirit. It's generally regarded as a good thing.

That's all for ～べき! Let's recap and get going, there's plenty more Adept grammar to get through, after all!

Summary

• 

  べき means "should" or "ought to", and is used to express what the speaker feels one "ought to do", or how one "ought to act".

• 

  べき sounds quite strong, and tends to be used for moral responsibilities, things that are common sense, or sometimes to strengthen a suggestion one feels strongly about.

• 

  べき attaches to casual (dictionary) form verbs.

• 

  If べき comes at the end of a sentence, it is almost always followed by だ or です. However, だ・です will sometimes get dropped in spoken language.

• 

  To make the negative of べき, use じゃない or the formal ではない.