adverbial N3 common casualpolitewritten
もしかしたら — perhaps / maybe
もしかしたら
Meaning
- perhaps / maybe / possibly — floating a tentative, genuinely uncertain possibility
Key sentence
もしかしたら雨が降るかもしれない。
Maybe it'll rain.
Usage
Sets up a guess and almost always pairs with sentence-final かもしれない (most common) or でしょう — it primes the listener that what follows is uncertain.
Variants
もしかすると — Same meaning, slightly more formal. もしかして — Same meaning; also used alone to probe a hunch — もしかして田中さん？ = 'Are you by any chance Tanaka?'
Examples
もしかしたら彼はもう知っているかもしれない。
Maybe he already knows.
もしかしたら道に迷ったのかもしれない。
Perhaps they got lost.
Easily confused with
See もしかしたら in real sentences
Jengo shows もしかしたら the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled from published Japanese grammar references.