expressing casual potential for adjectives


This is a follow up to [How to construct potential form for
adjectives](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3760/how-to-
construct-potential-form-for-adjectives)

I'd like to know how to say "can be x" where x is an adjective, in a casual
way. For example with a friend, this seems a little stiff: "敬語凄い長い可能性があるね。”
("Keigo can be really long.") Isn't there a casual term more relevant for this
situation? かもしれない doesn't seem relevant as I'm not expressing doubt.




Your original sentence sounds better as

> 敬語は凄く長くなる可能性がある。

I guess that means that in Japanese it sounds more natural to say

> Keigo can _get_ very long.

rather than

> Keigo can _be_ very long.

To make that less formal, you could try to omit 可能性, i.e.

> 敬語は凄く長くなるよね。  
>  Keigo gets really long (sometimes).

Other ways of saying the same thing (plagiarised from @istrasci) would include

> 敬語は凄く長いことがある。  
>  Sometimes keigo is very long.




Your original sentence sounds better as

> 敬語は凄く長くなる可能性がある。

I guess that means that in Japanese it sounds more natural to say

> Keigo can _get_ very long.

rather than

> Keigo can _be_ very long.

To make that less formal, you could try to omit 可能性, i.e.

> 敬語は凄く長くなるよね。  
>  Keigo gets really long (sometimes).

Other ways of saying the same thing (plagiarised from @istrasci) would include

> 敬語は凄く長いことがある。  
>  Sometimes keigo is very long.

