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What is the difference between: どこかで and どこかに

What is the difference between: どこかで and どこかに (Somewhere / Anywhere / Where )

Today I’m going to talk about the difference between どこかで and どこかに in Japanese! The two particles that you see (で and に) change the meaning of both these words that otherwise seem very similar! And don’t worry, it’s very easy to confuse the usage of these particles because they are similar so you’re not alone!

どこかで : Somewhere/Where
で indicates the place where the action has taken place. This particle is used to connect an event or action with a location or a place where it has occurred. In this situation it is usually followed by action verbs. For example:

どこかで私の教科書、失くしました。
I lost my textbook somewhere.

So you would use どこかで in an example where an event has occurred (i.e. losing your textbook) and you are trying to connect it to the place it has happened (i.e. somewhere).

どこかに : Somewhere/Anywhere/Where
に indicates the location or place that you don’t know. This particle is used to connect an object with a location or place where it exists. In this situation it is usually followed by verbs which indicate the location or direction of something or someone. For example:

どこかに私の教科書、忘れました。
I forgot my textbook somewhere.

So you would use どこかに in an example where you would like to express whether something is somewhere and you don’t know where that location is. Therefore using どこかに in this example means “I’ve misplaced my textbook somewhere and I don’t know where that is.”

– In short, で is used to express where a certain action takes place and に is used to express the position or location.

– For the most part どこかで and どこかに is usually always at the start of a sentence and is followed by their respective verbs.

– It’s important to know that when using で it is inferred that you have an idea where the location or the event that happened is, and using に means that you don’t know where that location is.

– And here’s a tip: you can simply shorten it to どっかで and どっかに and it still means the same thing. This is a common way of saying these phrases as it rolls off the tongue a bit easier.

Examples:
どこかに旅行に行きましょう。
Let’s go on a trip somewhere.

どこかでサッカーをしましょう。
Let’s play soccer somewhere.

サラはどこかに買い物をしに行きました。
Sarah went shopping somewhere.

どこかでパーティーをしています。
There’s a party somewhere.

Related Post:
Japanese Particles: で (de)
Japanese Particle に (ni)