Difference between 呼ぶ声がします and 呼びます

Question

The full context of the first original phrase is:

「・・・浦島{うらしま}さん、・・・浦島さん」と、誰かが呼{よ}ぶ声｛こえ｝がします。

I was just wondering, why is 声がする in the sentence when there is already 呼ぶ? Or rather, what would be wrong with replacing 呼ぶ声がします with 呼びます?

^ 「［誰か**が**呼ぶ］声がします」is also fine. 「［ジョン**の**買った］本」「［ジョン**が**買った］本」みたいな感じで・・ → https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/12829/9831 — Chocolate, Aug 21 '19 at 09:54

Chocolate · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-21T15:04:11.273

「・・・浦島さん、・・・浦島さん」と、誰かが呼ぶ声がします。

「・・・浦島さん、・・・浦島さん」と、誰かが呼びます。

Both are grammatically correct.

In the former, 声がします expresses/implies that someone's voice came toward the main character (浦島太郎 here) and he hears it.

So the latter is just:

Someone called, "Urashima-san, Urashima-san..."

while the original sounds more like:

Taro heard someone's voice calling him, "Urashima-san, Urashima-san..."

The する here means "to sense/perceive".

［声・音・におい・香り・味・感じ・[気]{き} etc.］ + がする

is used to mean "to sense/perceive [voice, sound, smell, taste, feeling, etc.]"

eg

「声がする」 hear a voice
「～の音がする」 hear the sound of ~
「～のにおいがする」 smell ~

For more on this usage of する, you can refer to these threads:

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 21 '19 at 09:58

So, in this case 呼ぶ声 is meant to be taken as a sort-of participle which means "a calling voice"/"a voice calling out". So the basic translation of what the sentence is - "'Urashima-san, Urashima-san', someone's voice called." You could use just "呼びます", the difference is mostly a stylistic one. Japanese uses "がします/する" instead of the literal verb, "call" in this case, to give the sentence a matter-of-fact feeling.

Difference between 呼ぶ声がします and 呼びます

2 Answers2