It can be used as "Isn't it?" or it can mean something like "maybe" if the intonation is different.  The basic meaning is just "maybe".

Based on what my native speaker friend said to me a few years ago, some people use things like "deshou" and "ne" as a way of letting the person they're speaking to have a response.  If you end a sentence just with "desu", it's kind of a feeling that "that's the way it is, and no discussion", whereas "deshou" is kinda softer, and allows the listener to then disagree, or have an opinion or whatnot, rather than shutting down the conversation somewhat.

I hope that makes sense.

163.2 CLAUSE darō/deshō/de arō
darō, deshō, and de arō are the plain, polite and learned (or bookish) -(y)ō forms of the cop., but unlike the -(y)ō form itself, darō, deshō and de arō indicate only pres. 'should', 'ought to', and not hortative. Colloquially, deshō can be shortened to desho (example f).

Note that darō, etc. is attached directly to V/adj.-fin. (incl. (-)nai), even though da cannot be attached in the same way. darō, etc. is usually attached to pln. forms, but in speech it is also occasionally found after -masu forms (see 230 e for an example). After pln. past -ta, both darō and -rō can be used.

darō, etc. adds the meaning of 'should', 'ought to' to a sentence.

a    価格はどんどん下がるだろう。    kakaku wa dondon sagaru darō    The price should come down rapidly.
b    それで十分なのだろう。    sore de jūbun na no darō    That ought to be sufficient.
c    この内閣は二年くらい大丈夫だろう。    kono naikaku wa ninen kurai daijōbu darō    This government should last for two years or so.
d    第九偏重とはいえ、「文化賓国」は言い過ぎだろう。    daiku henchō to wa ie bunka hinkoku wa iisugi darō    Even though we have this fondness for [Beethoven's] Ninth, to call [us] a 'cultural desert' is an exaggeration,
e    人と話すときも目を見ないと通じ合わないでしょう」。    hito to hanasu toki mo me o minai to tsūji-awanai deshō    When you talk with someone, too, surely you don't understand each other unless you look at the eyes.
f    「あなたが本当のサンタさんならできるでしょ」とねだるシーン…    anata ga hontō no santa-san nara dekiru desho to nedaru shīn    The scene where [the girl] asks [to be given a brother and father] with the words 'If you're the real Santa, you should be able to do it' . . .


JAPANESE: A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR is a complete reference guide to modern Japanese grammar. Accessible and systematic, it is suitable for students at all levels, whether independent learners or on taught courses.
Presented in alphabetical order, the grammar points are clear and concise and put in context by a wealth of authentic examples. The book explores thoroughly the complexities of Japanese and fills many gaps left by previous textbooks. The emphasis throughout is on contemporary Japanese as spoken and written by native speakers.
       
Stefan Kaiser is Professor at the Institute of Languages and Literatures, University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Yasuko Ichikawa is Professor at the International Center, University of Tokyo.
Noriko Kobayashi is Associate Professor and
Hilofumi Yamamoto is Assistant Professor, both at the Institute of Languages and Literatures, University of Tsukuba.

It seems like everyone else already has this covered, but just another example from a song:

いつか思い出すでしょう
(Itsuka omoidasu deshou.)

Translates to "You'll probably remember someday," or "I'm sure you'll remember someday."

The song is called "Uso" by SID if you want to look it up. It's pretty good ^_^

nadiatims wrote:

can be translated a lot of different ways based on context, but basically it makes an assertion (not necessarily a strong one) about what the speaker thinks or expects to be the case.

examples:
明日は雨でしょう it is expected to rain tomorrow (weather report)

A:カラオケ行こうや let's go to karaoke.
B:金ないだろう i thought you're out of cash (didn't you just say you're out of cash etc)

ここの部分を直してもらえますでしょうか would you be able to fix this bit for me?
(polite because you're asking the other whether or not they suppose it would be possible, instead of just straight up asking is it possible. )

A:映画はちょうくだらなかった movie was dumb
B:でしょう！ Right?! (just like i was telling you all along)

etc

pauro02 wrote:

I've been using deshou so many times, but I used it as something that ask for an approval of an action like synonymous to 'isn't it'.

if you're using it for permission, i hope you remembering to put か on the other end. Otherwise you've being asserting that the action you want to take is ok rather than asking for permission. That could come across as pushy　でしょう

ここの部分を直してもらえますでしょうか --- > ここの部分を直してもらえるのでしょうか　ーーー＞　Are they the same?　And if ever I would gonna ask permission with a でしょう、But I will not put on か　But instead a question mark, would it still be good? Thanks!

uisukii wrote:

何時か（いつか）

Just as a side note, いつ is typically not written in kanji because it's too easy to confuse it with 何時（なんじ） -- you can see it in kanji sometimes but I would definitely recommend writing it in hiragana.  Also in the old Toyo list recommendations you weren't supposed to write question words with kanji; this recommendation was dropped in the Joyo list, but many question words are relatively rare to see in kanji (どれ、いずれ、いつ、どちら, etc.)

(Obviously in the context of the song lyric above it has to be いつ and not なんじ)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2013 May 30, 9:43 am)

I think you should be careful in thinking of でしょう as "Don't you?"  A でしょう statement, especially with rising intonation, does sometimes invite the listener to respond, but the meaning is not as strong as ね or でしょうね.

Also one note about だろう at the end of a sentence.  For some reason, this is considered more blunt/rude than other plain-form things and is often avoided -- my experience with women from Tokyo is that they basically never use だろう at the end of sentence, and even a lot of men don't use it.  They use でしょう even in informal speech.  (だろうと思う is used by everyone).

yudantaiteki wrote:

uisukii wrote:

何時か（いつか）

Just as a side note, いつ is typically not written in kanji because it's too easy to confuse it with 何時（なんじ） -- you can see it in kanji sometimes but I would definitely recommend writing it in hiragana.  Also in the old Toyo list recommendations you weren't supposed to write question words with kanji; this recommendation was dropped in the Joyo list, but many question words are relatively rare to see in kanji (どれ、いずれ、いつ、どちら, etc.)

(Obviously in the context of the song lyric above it has to be いつ and not なんじ)

I was aware of question words typically written in hiragana (though not that there was an official recommendation). The brackets probably would have been better off reversed. It was used purely as a possible reading, in case for some reason pauro02 came across it. That said, I don't remember coming across such question words written in kanji and assumed that maybe it is something which might be present in more formal writing (thinking of こんにちは written as 今日は- well, this is something I read somewhere explaining that this happens; though I mainly read entertainment material so formal literature isn't something I know anything about, to be honest).


Thanks for the explanation. Provides a nice bit of context for understanding.

今晩は　is こんばんは、今日は is こんにちは. different greetings. They have kanjis, but they're usually spelled in kana.

Edit: they're the same, i just made a typo.
konbanWA does not exist. It is simply how you pronounce it. Since romaji systems rarely cares about accuracy I guess it would prefer writing it with a wa... but こんばんわ does not exist.

If you want to learn about でしょう you should remember the following phrase, cause you'll most definitely encounter it somewhere:

Ａ：　いつやるか？
Ｂ：　今でしょう！

And I've seen people claim that you shouldn't use 今日は because it's easy to misread it as きょう -- this is a good recommendation but unfortunately native speakers use 今日は all the time.

Zgarbas is technically correct in that こんばんわ does not exist, however, for the sake of pauro02, if you are reading something dialogue heavy (such as manga), you may come across こんばんわ (possibly spoken by younger peoples, children, or maybe even if the person is emphasizing the greeting/speaking to someone in a familiar -possibly to children- context). If you do find yourself reading this, it is probably safe to assume that this こんばんわ is actually こんばんは. This also happens sometimes with こんにちは (written as こんにちわ).

The reason is that in manga, and such related media, the author/writer often uses Japanese as it is pronounced by a character, which can lead to hiragana spelling which isn't "correct". This phonetic rendering of Japanese is stylistic, and if you do read a lot of this genre of Japanese media, it may be fair to make the suggestion that if something seems "incorrect", that double checking the usage with more "proper" forms of written media can be a safeguard against possibly getting into the habit of using a stylized variation of Japanese which may be viewed in a way you did not intend, in more formal, real-life settings.


One example I can think of is a blog post by Khatzmoto (spelling?) wherein he mentioned that for a period of time a lot of his spoken sentences ended in zo/ぞ due to a misunderstanding between the stylistic representation of Japanese in a certain media, and a more accurate representation of everyday spoken Japanese. This is probably a bit of an extreme case (I'm assuming?), but it was the only example I could think of at the moment.