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All About Japanese Particles: っけ (-kke)

[Serie: All About Japanese Particles]

Note: -Kke follows V-ta and Adj-ta forms. In feminine speech, the verbs forms tend to be desu, deshita, and V-mashita.

1. Indicates a muted question in cases when there is information shared with an interlocutor that the speaker is trying to recall.

明日の結婚式は、何時に始まるんでしたっけ
Ashita no kekkon-shiki wa, nanji ni hajimaru-n deshita-kke.
What time is the wedding going to start tomorrow? / The wedding tomorrow – what time was it going to start?

あなたの家はどこだったっけ
Anata no ie wa doko datta-kke.
Now, where was your house? / Where did you say your house was?

2. Indicates that the speaker is remembering something from the distant past.

この辺に学校があったっけ
Kono hen ni gakkō ga atta-kke.
Didn’t there used to be a school around here? / I seem to remember that there was a school around here.

あの人とよく酒を飲んだっけ
Ano hito to yoku sake o nonda-kke.
Back in the old day I used to go drinking a lot with him./ I remember going drinking with hime quite a bit.

– Source: All about particles – A handbook of Japanese function words


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