On the Japanese Language - First-Person Pronouns (Read 260 times)

[lazulum]

This is a topic I always enjoy talking about (English and one other lng too for that matter). Maybe I'll do one of these once a week.
I'll type a bit on one part of the topic raised by Spongelevator, that being about the pronounced masculine/feminine duality in Japanese.

In the case of pronouns this is immediately noticeable to learners.
In English there is really only one first-person pronoun (for each syntactic use) "I", "me"

There is no difference if either male or female use these regardless of frequency and context.

In Japanese there are many different pronouns that differ in register, masculinity, relationship with interlocutor, and other cultural meanings.

私 is in most of my use formal. Simply put, I would use this in formal environments or if I am not friendly/familiar with my interlocutor. Using this among friends frequently once resulted in a funny episode where a friend leaned over and muttered some heartfelt advice, "the way you use 私 all of the time makes you come off as gay." Needless to say, I don't use it in casual environments anymore haha.

僕 is more masculine, but still a bit more neutral than others. A good default if you are a male in familiar settings. 俺 can come off as confrontational, if you want to use it, either be in very friendly circles or be very confident. I've heard stories of non-Japanese who come and date Japanese girls, they use 俺 because it sounds cool, but the girl ends up laughing. I mean it, be confident, and be in shape. I used to use it with my ex, but that was after a long process of self-improvement. I mean it when I say be careful with 俺, if used incorrectly it can land you into some serious trouble.
(some crazy girls use 俺, but they are usually seen as aberrant, to say the least)

あたし、うち、私（わたくし）、never use these if you are not a girl. You will get looks, and not the kinds that you want haha.

Very rare and aberrant: おいら、わし。Former will get you laughs, unless you are a comedian, sumo, or live in certain parts of the country. Latter, you best be a highly educated old man if you use it (sometimes you will see old men in Japanese anime, games, etc., use it)

Any questions or comments? Happy to discuss the subject if you have any stories of your own, or what have you.

[spongelevator]

lol that is very many ways
ore sounds pretty troublesome to use
those people sound quite confident to use it despite what could happen lol
I've heard of bokukko but I did not know some girls used ore
being able to use anything from an actual name to ore (albeit with strange looks) would give many options huh
I remember the pillar men using waga or wagahai because they were like 10,000 years old or something
and also in all those manly animes they always seem to use whatever the most casual or rude pronouns are like omae and temee
japanese definitely seems to have a lot more gender and formality differences than english because most times I see someone here trying to be professional they just use big words and smile



also yeah after rereading the rules definitely we're partners in crime now
this guy posts off-topic posts twice in the same thread! can't stop me

[Aeon]

先生、先生！「あたい」がいいですか
did i butcher that? maybe. it is joke, regardless
although i am interested as to why i've only ever heard あたい from cirno, and the only place i'd heard おいら was from sans. until now i thought he was just being funny but i guess it's a real thing. i've heard that わたくし is just a super-formal version of 私, but it's feminine too?

anyway, i like the variety in japanese. you may not get to pick your own name (usually), but you can at least pick how you call yourself, with regard to the situation
i am very glad to hear your friend's advice because i'm absolutely certain i would have stuck with 私 in casual environments. i thought it was just true neutral, but i guess everything has some kind of connotation.

i wonder how many people have tried to go the all anime crude boy route with 俺様 and きさま, and how long they were able to commit to the bit

[spongelevator]

I do not know what that means but I know it's a question and directed towards teacher
I got like 50% comprehension wowie very nice

oh yeah I forgot about that
pronouns can give extra character personality in japan because of meanings but here we've got I and uuh my me
I remember thinking boku was the neutral because of the amount of female character in anime who used it
and then one day I just found out it was an anime trope or something
true chad neutral is to just say "I" in english instead

lol call your teacher "yarou" in class and make sure to tear off your sleeves first for maximum effect

[lazulum]

Aeon
It's a good start, although 「大丈夫」would be better (i.e., is "atai" okay?). That's another topic, that phrase "daijoubu" will probably become the phrase you use the most. Very, very convenient, and much wider used than any English equivalents I can think of at the moment.
Alternatively, and this is the power of the subject marker 「は」you could just ask「先生『あたい』は？」(for beginner, I can teach more advanced syntax later, good to get used to and focus on functions of particles for now)

あたい actually I had to look up, it seems to be what children say, particularly in places such as East Tokyo. It's also feminine and interchangeable with 「あたくし」. Makes sense that Cirno says it haha.

That was a typo on my part, meant to type 「あたくし」yeah it's feminine. Never heard a guy say it.

I though the same as you, cultural aspects. It is neutral, but that means women use it too, which naturally communicates a male's failure to distinguish himself from women. It's implicit, it's just strange for a guy to stick with 私 in Japanese -- just how it sounds (which is a culturally imbued attitude). My observations at least.

Yeah different languages offer different modes of thought, different ways of seeing and thinking about the world. Everyone should learn a second language sometime, broadens your horizons.

「俺様」just reading that my jaw dropped a little bit hahaha
No one would ever use that one haha, maybe a barbarian king. Even to me the phrase has an aura of arrogance, more than just crude. That one will start a fight (maybe not if non-Japanese says it, but the response won't be good in any case)

spongelevator
Will get back to you in a bit, something came up that's requiring my attention

[lazulum]

spongelevator

俺 is indeed troublesome. Recommended for advanced learners.
Very rare if girls use 俺, in my opinion it's not a good look either-- can't picture myself dating a girl who uses it. Girls have many more options than men when it comes to pronouns though without the use of masculine pronouns. Name use is another very big topic haha.

First I've heard of "bokukko", never heard it spoken. I got permission to use Chunagon in the meantime, ran the word through spoken and written word corpora and got no hits for it. Seems very rare in use.
Looked it up online, there's a wiki article about it.
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9C%E3%82%AF%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3
Seems the slang for what I described earlier is called an 俺女, didn't know there was a term for it haha. "Bokuko" refers to girls who use "boku" according to the article, it's more preferable than girls say "ore" at least. Makes sense that it doesn't appear in any corpora. Will read more about it when I have the time.

Ahh omae, second-person pronouns are much more different in Japanese. They take some getting used to. Omae is in a similar bracket to "ore", be very careful with that one, depends on the tone/pitch you take with it. If you want to start a fight with someone that's something you'd say. A girl once shared with me that when her mother and father would get into arguments her father would use "omae" and she described to me how that always hurt her mother. Be careful with those. Among familiar guys, maybe izakaya, go for it (once you've mastered it). I've never used it myself though.

Waga isn't hyper-masculine hahaha
That's something a politician might use to talk about a people. It's very old Japanese, also very high register, really only used for certain official function. It also has a specific and different function that indicates a relationship with what immediately follows.
That's something a politician might use to talk about a people or a country 「我が国の…」. 我々is another one, wouldn't ever expect to hear it outside of a speech, or in a very high formality context really. Confirmed this with corpora, everyday English only came up with one hit for 我が

temae, specifically "otemae" is a very beautiful expression that I sadly rarely get to use. 「お手前頂戴致します」. There are few feelings of beauty that come close to learning an expression that does not quite exist in your mother tongue that contains so much culture and history. No translation can truly contain within it the meanings contained there. When you experience that, you will know how I feel when I think of that phrase.

Mods are asleep, we can get away with a lot haha
I won't rat you out, we three can cover for each other if the mods come back, "mum's" the word