Adverbs of Certainty (definitely, maybe, probably)
Ten common adverbs ranked from certain to uncertain, with placement rules and the sans doute trap
One thought, ten shades of certainty
Most languages get by with a handful of words for certainty; French splits that scale into more than ten adverbs — and each one carries its own placement rule. In the listening test these words tell you how sure the speaker is; in reading, sans doute and friends are classic traps. Both TCF sections lean on them.
💡 Intuition: picture these adverbs as a dial running from 100% down to 0% — from sans aucun doute (pinned at 100%) through peut-être (a coin-flip 50%) down to sûrement pas (0%). Anchor two "false friends" and the whole scale holds: sans doute ≈ 75% (probably, NOT "without any doubt") and sûrement ≈ 80% in speech (probably, not iron-clad).
| Adverb | Force | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sans aucun doute | 100% | no doubt at all |
| forcément | 100% | necessarily |
| certainement | 90% | certainly |
| évidemment / bien sûr | 95% | of course / obviously |
| sûrement | 80% (often weaker in speech) | surely / probably |
| sans doute | 75% | probably (⚠ NOT "without doubt"!) |
| vraisemblablement | 75% | likely (formal) |
| probablement | 70% | probably |
| peut-être | 50% | maybe |
| sûrement pas / certainement pas | 0% | definitely not |
⚠️ The sans doute trap
- Il viendra sans doute. → He'll probably come (~75%, not certain).
- Il viendra sans aucun doute. → He'll come, no doubt at all.
This is one of the most common TCF reading-comprehension traps.
Placement
- Simple tense: after the verb (Il vient sûrement).
- Compound tense: between auxiliary and past participle (Il est sûrement venu).
- Verb + infinitive: before the infinitive (Il va sûrement venir).
peut-être has three positions:
- After the verb: Il viendra peut-être.
- Sentence-initial + que + indicative: ***Peut-être qu'*il viendra.
- Sentence-initial + inversion (formal): Peut-être viendra-t-il.
⚠️ The nastiest one: sentence-initial peut-être / sans doute / à peine / aussi demand inversion or que
Rendering "maybe he'll come" as Peut-être il viendra is wrong. The moment these adverbs open the sentence, French requires either que or subject-verb inversion; placed mid-sentence (after the verb), they need nothing.
| Adverb up front | ✅ Correct (que or inversion) | ❌ Wrong |
|---|---|---|
| peut-être (maybe) | Peut-être qu'il viendra. / Peut-être viendra-t-il. | Peut-être il viendra |
| sans doute (probably) | Sans doute a-t-il raison. / Sans doute qu'il a raison. | Sans doute il a raison |
| à peine (barely / as soon as) | À peine était-il arrivé qu'il repartit. | À peine il était arrivé |
| aussi (= therefore) | Aussi a-t-il refusé. | Aussi il a refusé |
| Mid-sentence | Il viendra peut-être. — nothing to change | — |
🔑 Up front → que or inversion; mid-sentence → leave it. à peine / aussi (= therefore) almost always take inversion; peut-être / sans doute allow both. ⚠️ At the start, aussi means "therefore" (inversion); elsewhere it means "too / also" (Moi aussi).
Probability via verb tenses
- Il doit être malade. = he's probably ill (present devoir + inf = inference).
- Il aura oublié. = he must have forgotten (futur antérieur of probability, formal).
- Il viendrait demain. = he's said to be coming tomorrow (conditional of hearsay).
TCF tips
- sans doute ≠ certain. If a question asks the writer's certainty, this means probably.
- Sentence-initial peut-être always takes que or inversion.
- devoir + infinitive at present can mean inference, not obligation.