Secrets of the Japanese Language (1): Japanese Has No Personal Pronouns
Feb 21st 2010 03:15
Japanese
language
personal
pronoun
noun
appellative
Roomy
This is the first installment of my new series on Secrets of the Japanese Language.
I think one of the most perplexing features in the Japanese language is the usage of what's called "personal pronouns."
Learners of Japanese often complain about the difficulties of using Japanese pronouns properly: for one thing, they have a tough time distinguishing among numerous words meaning just a pronoun like "I" such as わたし(私), わたくし(私), ぼく(僕), おれ(俺), あたし, うち, わし and all the rest of it; for another, the tendency of omitting pronouns from a sentence makes it difficult to understand the right meaning of the sentence. Also, most of the learners seem to be not quite sure when to drop the pronouns.
Strictly speaking, Japanese has no personal pronouns as those defined in the Indo-European languages. Most of the Japanese words serving as personal pronouns have their origin in appellatives (common nouns).
For example, the original meaning of "私" ("watashi" or "watakushi") is "a matter of private concern," which still remains in a phrase like: 私の無い人 ("watakushi no nai hito: a person without personal greed");
あなた ("anata") derives from an archaic word indicating place or direction ("over there; that way"), which has later come to have the modern sense referring to the person spoken (or written) to.
Even today, "そちら ('sochira')" or its more colloquial form "そっち ('sotchi')" is used to mean "that way" as well as "you": そっちへ行きます。("I'll go that way; I'll come to you."); そっちはどう？ ("How're you doing?")
These and other examples I haven't given above demonstrate that they are pronominal appellatives (in other words, "pronoun-like nouns") rather than pronouns in the strict sense.
In my opinion, Japanese didn't need any personal pronouns in ancient times. This explains why we still seem to have a tendency of omitting pronouns in places where necessary in other languages. In case we felt it's absolutely necessary, we used various appellatives as substitutes for them.
Below are a few instances that specify this feature:
1.
It's not very uncommon to come across female infants using their own name instead of the first person singular pronoun when referring to themselves. Only a small fraction of girls keep this habit well into adulthood, which makes them objects of public derision. I'm really grateful to my parents who have told me to break this childish habit at an early age.
2.
"自分" is a common noun meaning one's own self, but not a few people (especially male persons when speaking humbly) use the word for the same meaning as "私":
自分もそう思います。("I think so too." This means literally: "My humble self thinks so too.")
3.
When it comes to "second person," it's quite common to substitute it with an appellative (i.e. the term which describes the person spoken to):
田中さんはそこに行ったことがありますか？ "Have you ever been there, Mr. Tanaka?" (Literally: "Has Mr. Tanaka ever been there?")
Thus, the term which describes the person spoken to very often substitutes for the second person pronoun, as if it were talking about a third person.
It's not hard to suppose that these tendencies have opened the way to using the pronoun-like nouns in Japanese. I think such supposition makes it easy to explain the diversity of "personal pronouns" as well as the seemingly frequent omissions of them at the same time. In fact, words serving for "personal pronouns" in Japanese are not omitted from, but added to, the sentences only when felt absolutely necessary to avoid misunderstanding or emphasize the person in question.
At any rate, I love this feature of the words we use as equivalents for personal pronouns in Japanese. Using its diversity, we can express what we are: our age, sex, social status and the situation where we place ourselves. It's just like we choose our clothes in various ways to express ourselves. The same holds true for Japanese ways of speech, but it's beyond the scope of this article.
ﾟ･*:.｡. .｡.:･
☆。・:*゜。・:*゜
In this article, I tried to steer clear of the passive voice as far as possible, because English is more of a direct language than I have assumed before.
I think one of the most perplexing features in the Japanese language is the usage of what's called "personal pronouns."
Learners of Japanese often complain about the difficulties of using Japanese pronouns properly: for one thing, they have a tough time distinguishing among numerous words meaning just a pronoun like "I" such as わたし(私), わたくし(私), ぼく(僕), おれ(俺), あたし, うち, わし and all the rest of it; for another, the tendency of omitting pronouns from a sentence makes it difficult to understand the right meaning of the sentence. Also, most of the learners seem to be not quite sure when to drop the pronouns.
Strictly speaking, Japanese has no personal pronouns as those defined in the Indo-European languages. Most of the Japanese words serving as personal pronouns have their origin in appellatives (common nouns).
For example, the original meaning of "私" ("watashi" or "watakushi") is "a matter of private concern," which still remains in a phrase like: 私の無い人 ("watakushi no nai hito: a person without personal greed");
あなた ("anata") derives from an archaic word indicating place or direction ("over there; that way"), which has later come to have the modern sense referring to the person spoken (or written) to.
Even today, "そちら ('sochira')" or its more colloquial form "そっち ('sotchi')" is used to mean "that way" as well as "you": そっちへ行きます。("I'll go that way; I'll come to you."); そっちはどう？ ("How're you doing?")
These and other examples I haven't given above demonstrate that they are pronominal appellatives (in other words, "pronoun-like nouns") rather than pronouns in the strict sense.
In my opinion, Japanese didn't need any personal pronouns in ancient times. This explains why we still seem to have a tendency of omitting pronouns in places where necessary in other languages. In case we felt it's absolutely necessary, we used various appellatives as substitutes for them.
Below are a few instances that specify this feature:
1.
It's not very uncommon to come across female infants using their own name instead of the first person singular pronoun when referring to themselves. Only a small fraction of girls keep this habit well into adulthood, which makes them objects of public derision. I'm really grateful to my parents who have told me to break this childish habit at an early age.
2.
"自分" is a common noun meaning one's own self, but not a few people (especially male persons when speaking humbly) use the word for the same meaning as "私":
自分もそう思います。("I think so too." This means literally: "My humble self thinks so too.")
3.
When it comes to "second person," it's quite common to substitute it with an appellative (i.e. the term which describes the person spoken to):
田中さんはそこに行ったことがありますか？ "Have you ever been there, Mr. Tanaka?" (Literally: "Has Mr. Tanaka ever been there?")
Thus, the term which describes the person spoken to very often substitutes for the second person pronoun, as if it were talking about a third person.
It's not hard to suppose that these tendencies have opened the way to using the pronoun-like nouns in Japanese. I think such supposition makes it easy to explain the diversity of "personal pronouns" as well as the seemingly frequent omissions of them at the same time. In fact, words serving for "personal pronouns" in Japanese are not omitted from, but added to, the sentences only when felt absolutely necessary to avoid misunderstanding or emphasize the person in question.
At any rate, I love this feature of the words we use as equivalents for personal pronouns in Japanese. Using its diversity, we can express what we are: our age, sex, social status and the situation where we place ourselves. It's just like we choose our clothes in various ways to express ourselves. The same holds true for Japanese ways of speech, but it's beyond the scope of this article.
ﾟ･*:.｡. .｡.:･
☆。・:*゜。・:*゜
In this article, I tried to steer clear of the passive voice as far as possible, because English is more of a direct language than I have assumed before.
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Although in my language personal pronouns are not mandatory in the nominative case, verb inflections show the grammatical person. This makes the translation of Japanese lyrics to Greek a bit difficult for me.
I heard こっち used as 1st person pronoun. I like the ring of it. (But then, あんた sounds good to me too, but is not a polite way to call someone)
Thank you!
And what about the 3d person - it? Is it possible to say これ、それ、あれ？
このポストのためにありがとうございます。
I think one of the most perplexing features in the Japanese language is the usage of what are called "personal pronouns."
It appears that Japanese didn't need any personal pronouns in ancient times. (‘In my opinion‘ would normally be used to give a more personal slant on a topic. Here, you‘re expressing a factual idea, so it‘s OK not to tell us directly that it‘s your opinion.)
In cases where we felt it to be absolutely necessary, we used various appellatives as substitutes for them.
Below are a few instances that illustrate this feature:
I'm really grateful to my parents who have told me at an early age to break this childish habit.
It‘s a very interesting article! I didn‘t know the literal meaning of 私 before - it was only recently that I noticed there was a verb わたします. I like the indirectness about personal pronouns in Japanese, although it is one of the things that makes it perplexing to outsiders..!
Of course, it‘s sometimes possible to leave out pronouns in English too, but only really at the beginning of a sentence - ‘Went shopping yesterday. Bought a new coat‘ - and it‘s mostly older people who talk that way.
Do you mean the word for pass, right?
I think, one of the most perplexing features in the Japanese language is the usage of, "personal pronouns."
Most of the Japanese words serving as personal pronouns have their origins in appellative nouns (common nouns).
Even today, "そちら ('sochira')" or its more colloquial form "そっち ('socchi')" is used to mean "that way" as well as "you": そっちへ行きます。
("How are you doing?")
These and other examples I have given above demonstrate that they are pronominal appellative (in other words, "pronoun-like nouns") rather than pronouns in the strict sense.
This explains why we still seem to have a tendency of omitting pronouns in places when they are necessary in other languages.
Only a small fraction of girls keep this habit well into adulthood, which makes them objects of public derision (ridicule or scorn).
"自分" is a common noun meaning one's own self, but a lot of people (especially male persons when speaking humbly) use the word for the same meaning as "私":
Using its diversity, we can express what we are: our age, sex, social status, and the situation where we place ourselves.
Great article. Your English lexicon always impresses me, and makes your entries very enjoyable (and fascinating) to read. I'm know I'm guilty of using personal pronouns when I should omit them. Most of the time when I speak (once the topic has been decided) I will drop them, but more often than not when I write I include them if I am writing short simple answers for my homework. Although, I drop them when I have to write compositions for my assignments. I don't know it's kind of weird.
Personally, the most confusing aspect of Japanese, for me, are the use of particles. For instance when I told my teacher that I eat chopsticks for lunch instead of saying I use them to eat with at lunch. Hahaha, the look she gave me was priceless. I hope that you will eventually, get around to writing about particles.
日本語の秘密を説明してくれた日記をありがとう。
本当に、役立ってくれます。
文章の終わりでつける「だろう」、「でしょう」、なんて言葉を今度お願いします。
Again a great entree from you! It's kinda difficult for me to understand, I'll read it again tomorrow :)
@Dimitris_KCY
I know your language preserves the inflectional features of the classical languages, and its subject pronouns can be usually omitted. But the difference is that Japanese has no personal endings of verbs and even drops object pronouns.
As you might be aware, "こっち" is a counterpart of "そっち" and not only means "this way" but also occasionally has a meaning of "me".
"あんた" is a corrupt form of "あなた" and conveys familiarity as well as impoliteness.
@Key
The third person singular pronoun "it" can seldom be translated to Japanese. In most cases, it is ignored in Japanese translations:
今 (now)、雨が降って (raining) います (is)。"It's raining now."
この本を (this book) 読むのは (to read) 面白い (interesting)。 "It is interesting to read this book."
Only occasionally it can be translated as "それ":
それは (it) わたし (me) です (is)。 "It's me."
@niteowlz23
I'm glad to know this could help you with understanding the personal pronouns in Japanese.
Spanish may also drop subject pronouns, but the personal endings of verbs indicate who is being addressed. Since Japanese has no such feature, you just have to distinguish them by the context. :P
@barish
Çok senin yorum için teşekkür ederiz!
Sana gelecek mesajlar zevk umuyoruz.
@Steeleye
Thanks for the compliment!
I hope you'll also enjoy my future entries. :)
@mr spoon
Thanks for correcting this entry!
It was exactly what I wanted to say "pronoun-like nouns" in Japanese have advantages and disadvantages.
Japanese is really a language you take a lot of getting used to, but your effort will be rewarded when you master the skill of Japanese.
I've often come across English expressions without the subject pronouns:
Love this outfit! <3
Sounds cool!
Looks like someone is in love.
These are used by young people in their comments.
@JackBean
Yes indeed, "わたす（渡す）" is a quite different word from "わたし（私）."
Thank you for explaining it to mr spoon for me! :)
@Jesse
I'm glad you enjoyed my article! :)
Well, are you talking about your Japanese lessons?
If mean you often drop pronouns in your English sentences, it's really weird. xD
I'm planning to write something about the use of particles in Japanese.
So don't worry! I think it's very important.
It's pretty funny that you told your teacher as if you ate chopsticks for lunch. lol
But I'm curious about what you said in Japanese at that time.
@京都で100%の女の子に出会った
どういたしまして、冠さん。
日本語は文末にどんな助詞や助動詞を使うかがとても重要なので、いずれ書きますね。
（わたしっていつから先生になったんでしょう 笑）
@Brian
Thank you, Brian.
Please let me know your remarks about this article tomorrow. :)
@monci
Thank you for your comment and I'm sorry I didn't meet your expectation.
Due to a lack of expressive power, I was boring you with my post.
But this is one of topics I've wanted to write for a long time.
Also, my aim is to write "thought-provoking" articles in clear and convincing language.
I don't want to come across as a superficial person.
im gonna make a print out of this article.
I hope it could be of some help to you.
I appreciate your comment!! :D
Actually, in Bahasa Indonesia, we also try not to use second personal pronouns because many people consider that it is not polite to use in public, especially if we use them for people who are older than we are or have higher social status. So, if we really need to address someone, we use "Bapak" and "Ibu" which literally mean "Sir" and "Madam".
Are there any words in Japanese that equal to the words "Bapak" and "Ibu"??
I'm pretty sure that, if I weren't a Japanese, I wouldn't be satisfied with such a language with tons of ambiguity as Japanese. But now I'm a Japanese, I really enjoy the Japanese ways of speaking, haha! :D
I don't know much about Bahasa Indonesia, but I think it's interesting that you tend to avoid second person pronouns in Indonesia. There are some parallels with the situation in our language. We don't use second person pronoun so often. Although "あなた" is said to be its polite form, it's usually considered as impolite to address our bosses, teachers or even parents by "あなた." So we have to address them "社長 (the company president)," "先生 (teacher)" or "おとうさん (father)" respectively.
Maybe we don't use such addresses as "Sir" and "Madam." We use the person's family name instead.
Also, I heard such pronoun as あんた。Is it colloquial variant of あなた？
if we DON'T KNOW the name of person that we are talking with and we need to address him/her, is it okay to use "anata"??
By the way, from what I have read in this journal entry, I think that "anata" is quite the same as "sampean" in Javanese. Javanese people use "sampean" as a polite second personal pronoun. However, it is considered impolite to be used to address our bosses, teachers, and parents. their original meanings are also quite the same in my opinion. The word "sampean" is from the word "sampai" which means "destination that we will go to".
どういたしまして、Key さん！＾＿＾
"あんた" is a corrupt form of "あなた" and sounds overfamiliar and impolite.
You shouldn't say "あんた" to someone unless he/she is your closest friend.
@shifu
Thanks for your reply, shifu san!
If we were to address someone whose name we don't know, we could use "あなた." Even in this case, we often use the term characterizing the person：
「おまわりさんも一緒に来てくださいますか？ (Can you come with me, officer?)」
I think it's so interesting that the Javanese word "sampean" is similar to "anata" in its meaning as well as its derivation. I wonder if Javanese is close to Japanese, it's all the more surprising because the names of the languages are very similar, haha! ＾＾
Respect
Lloyd
x
I take that as a compliment.
Thank a lot, Lloyd!!! :D
This text tells us a confusing story on Japanese. Actually, I'm a native Japanese, I didn't realize such a misunderstanding occurred when we talk to someone who is from abroad. I think we should realize that you said.^^
As the proverb says, "Custom makes all things easy."
This is especially true for learning Japanese.
For example, if you said in front of me in Japanese, "Washed hand," I'd easily understand that you washed your hands. But if I had no Japanese comprehension, I would ask you, "who washed whose hand?"
It's not so hard to understand the conjugation of verbs in Japanese, and the Japanese pronunciation is quite simple. But if you want to learn the Japanese ways of speech, I'd say, "Just get used to them."
could you be my personal Japanese teacher? XDD
*just kidding*
But I guess, you'd be a awesome teacher! : )
It's very understandable, I took me enough time, but it's still difficult xD
Thanks~
I bet you have to pay much money for it! xD
Joking aside, if you still think my lesson is a little too difficult, I'm not a full-fledged teacher. ;p
The examples I gave above as well as the ones that I've omited demonstrate that they are pronominal appellatives (in other words, "pronoun-like nouns") rather than pronouns in the strict sense. (I think this is just a way to make things clearer. But I don't think your's is grammatically wrong)
Thank you for your correction!
Actually, I was not sure if that sentence I wrote could express what I meant. Your correction looks much better. :)
はしを食べました。 I ate chopsticks. I meant to say, はしでひろごはんを食べました。 I use chopsticks...
Uh-huh, you actually wanted to say, "はしで おひるごはんを たべました。（箸で お昼ご飯を 食べました。）"
Do you know はし can mean "bridge," "chopsticks," or "edge?" The are distinguished by their intonation patterns. But it might be a little complicated to explain them here.
But a good teacher is never cheap (^^ ')
Anyway, it's not your fault that it's difficult to understand for me, it's mine, because my English is not that good. Your English is way better than mine!
So just go on, I'll train my English also, some when I wont have any problems anymore ;)
Waiting for your next entree, greetings
Wow, thanks! I'll check to see if your offer is acceptable. xD
Your English is not bad.
If I do say so myself, I'm always afraid to make a mistake, but you don't hesitate to make mistakes. This means you're a better learner than I am. :)
-Hiroko
p.s. you're my new hero.(^_^)
Thank you sooo much! (*＾∇＾*)☆･ﾟ:*ぅれしぃ☆･ﾟ:*
I'm very happy and a bit embarrassed to read your compliment. r(^ω^*)))
I love studying languages because it's as interesting as working out puzzles. <3
I hope you'll let me know how you feel about my other posts. ♡
橋 bridge
箸 chopstick
端 corner; margin
In Tokyo, 橋 has rising intonation and 箸 has falling intonation. What is confusing is, however, that they are pronounced in an opposite manner in Osaka and in surrounding districts.
ごめんね～最近添削できねくて～T_T
ちょー忙しいのよ。
でもまだ日記を書いてるけど。週末に添削する予定だよ。
I barely see your entry on my page..I wonder why (= =)a
well~see you soon <3
dea
デアちゃんみたいに一度にたくさんの添削はもらわないけど（人気の差？）じわじわと皆さんが書き込んでくれて、気がつくとこんなにすごい数になってます（＠＿＠）
そうだね～デアちゃんは仕事が３つもあって超過密状態なんだよね。
体をこわさなようにね！
Looking forward to your coming next time!! <3
Many Indo-European languages are inflectional and verbs often bear an ending that indicates the person. Usually, this has made the subject unnecessary -- like most Romance and Slavic languages. Over time, as the endings erode and fade away, the subject may become necessary again, as happened in French for instance.
On the other hand, most Asian languages are pro-drop, even though they have no personal inflection on verbs. Chinese, for instance, is a monosyllabic language (meaning without any inflection of any kind; unlike Japanese which is a synthetic language) and it's also pro-drop.
As for HAshi and haSHI -- please, pleeeeeease write about the pitch system!!!! Especially how the system works over phrases and sentences, rather than just individual words. There are so many perplexing occurrences and pitch shifts, such as how taBEru becomes TAbete, but taBETAi (where the downshift occurs on the 2nd, 1st or 3rd syllable, respectively). I've got my own personal explanation as to why this happens, but I've never read a confirmation of this anywhere. Textbooks very rarely mention pitch, and when they do, they usually only indicate pitch on the word level and omit any explanation of what actually happens at the level of the phrase. Some people even claim that it's better not to teach pitch because it does tend to vary from region to region, but in my opinion, that's just a way to avoid explaining it at all.
Keep the linguistics articles coming!
Thank you for joining in this discussion. I suppose you have a detailed knowledge of linguistic study.
I know Japanese is sometimes lumped together with other languages under the term of "pro-drop language," but in fact, the omission of pronouns in those languages differ considerably in origins and conditions.
The main purpose of this article was to show that Japanese has had no personal pronoun in the strict meaning of word, and some kinds of nouns have been diverted to pronominal use only when they are absolutely needed. It's quite usual for us to use an expression like: 内気な私ですから ("because I'm shy"; literally "because of my shy self"). This explains why we often use 彼 and 彼女 to mean "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" respectively.
As for the variation of pitch accent observed in a phrase, that's certainly not a simple question. As you may know, it varies from region to region and, unlike the pitch accent within a single word, it has little to do with the difference of meaning. I think similar pitch systems can be found in some English phases, for example, "study JapaNEse" has a different tonic syllable from "JApanese food." Such variations seem to be attributed to the convenience of pronunciation.
But I'm very curious about your own explanation of why such variations can occur. Maybe it's more convincing than the explanations by others, especially by me. :)
You brought a very good argument :-)
But fact is, you're better than me, no matter what ;-)
Best regards
your young friend ~ :p
As for my explanation for the pitch change, how about I send you an email instead ;)
"only 3 years" もちろん XD
You're talking about years like they'd be weeks :P
3 Years is such a long time, in 3 years I'll be able to speak Japanese (i guess, if I train a bit ^^ )
Later~ :)
Thank you for explaining the difference of sound system between English and Japanese. As far as English is concerned, I must admit that I'm only a beginner-level learner of the language.
I suggest that you post your explanation for the pitch change as an entry of your journal in order to share it with many people. :)
Of course! I'm pretty sure you'll be able to speak Japanese fluently in three years. :D
本当にありがとうございます！私はがんばります！
日本語はすごいです ＾＿＾
But "日本語はすごいです" sounds somewhat strange, though it's grammatically correct. To clarify the meaning of this sentence, you should explain in what respect Japanese is regarded as "sugoi" like, "日本語はすごく面白いです" or "日本語はすごく難しいです."
ああ～ そうですか、ありがとう！
私は日本語はすごく面白いです。 = I think Japanese is very interesting (postive way)
is that right? because | 面白い= interesting
So I'm unsure >.<
Thanks for talking so much =D
That was a good try. But you're just one step away from the correct answer.
If you think Japanese is interesting, you should say, 僕は日本語がすごく面白いと思っています (where 僕 indicates that you're a young boy).
Interesting + thinking => I think ____ is interesting :P
ありがとう、先生さん =) ( Could I use "様" ? or would that be to polite ^^ )
僕は日本語すごく面白いとむずかしいと思っています ^.^ (correct?)
僕は日本語すごく面白いとむずかしいと思っています ^.^ (wrong)
僕は日本語がすごく面白くてむずかしいと思っています ^.^ (correct)
面白く (the adverbial form of 面白い) + particle て
I don't want you to call me with 様! Just call me Roomy-chan or Rumi-chan! :D
Your corrections are awesome, Roomy-chan ;)
On weekend I'll study and write down what you've teached me :p
Also i'll write an entree again, hope you'll like it =)
Also, most of the learners seem to be not quite sure when to drop the pronouns.
あなた ("anata") derives from an archaic word indicating place or direction ("over there; that way"), which has later come to have the modern sense of referring to the person spoken (or written) to.
In case we feel it's absolutely necessary, we use various appellatives as substitutes for them. (Because you're generalizing, you use present tense.)
It's not very uncommon to come across female toddlers using their own name instead of the first person singular pronoun when referring to themselves.
Also, though I can correct what you've written, I don't think I can write as well as you! (I end up using the dictionary and searching grammatical structures when I read your entries and I learn new things!) I will take notes for when I try to write my own essays, ha ha.
I think because I like to approach languages with "an empty mind" (meaning I will NOT apply my own language rules to it), I didn't find the lack of personal pronouns that frustrating. Though I still become a little confused at times, ha ha.
I think one of the troubles people have in learning languages is that they won't let go of their own language rules. Very frequently in my French/Japanese classes I hear students say "But that's not how you say it in English." ^^;;
I admire you for your linguistic skills! I'm always very fascinated by what you write!
I was really waiting for your reading this entry. In this entry, I tried to steer clear of the passive voice as far as possible on your advice. I'd be so glad if you could give me a passing score. :D
Previously, I thought English uses much more passive syntax than Japanese does, because Japanese is a language which is basically very poor in passive syntax. For example when we speak in Japanese, we usually express our feelings in active voice, as "驚きました," while English uses passive voice: "I was surprised."
But your suggestion that I should use more direct expressions to add strength to my article dropped a bomb on me and I snapped out of it. Thank you for your suggestion!
I'm also thankful to you and those who corrected my entries for sparing the precious time. I know some people stay clear of my entries because my entries are not so easy to emend, ha-ha! :P
All flattery aside, I think your Japanese is very fine because you approach languages with an empty mind. We tend to learn foreign languages on the base of our own language. This may very often cause so unnatural expression that the native speakers can't even understand. When I looked through other members' entries on Lang-8, I've sometimes found the mistakes of that kind in the French and German sentences written by English speaking people.
I bet you'll be able to be expert at any language you study, Kathryn. :)
I totally agree with you that one of the biggest difficulties in learning a language is not to stick to the same speaking habits and thinking patterns as in your L1.
As some of my fellow Japanese students mentioned the use of particles, that´s a major difficulty for me as well. I especially get confused about when to respectively use が、を、で.
Thank you for the compliment! I'm so happy you're saying much for this article. :)
I think that Japanese way of speaking is really confusing for the beginners, but it'll turn out to be so interesting when they get the knack of it.
I know there are other perplexing features in the Japanese language. The usage of particle like が, は or を is so difficult for learners of Japanese that they should struggle with using the particles correctly. I'm going to deal with this issue in my future entry.
Thanks for your comment. And welcome to my journal!
It's going to take some time to make out Part 2, so give me several days.
ｼﾞｬｽさんの日本語もお上手です。
Sarah
Thank you for your comment! I'm glad you like it. :D
Well, I'm overwhelmed by a lot of expectations.
I must disagree with mr spoon about this. I think age doesn't really matter for who uses this, but it just matters how informal the situation is.
I wonder if it ever gets confusing for Japanese people. I can imagine them being told that you always need a subject in English, and without one (in the present tense) it's a command....but obviously something like "Guess it didn't snow enough for school to be canceled"(my situation today, heh) makes absolutely no sense as a command.
Well, this is the first time I've read your journal Roomy. You write so well! And it's a very nice topic.
Thank you for your comment! I'm glad you entered this argument. :)
As I wrote in one of my comments above, I've sometimes come across something like "Love this dress!" in my favorite fashion forum and wondered if it might be a command. But of course, this means "I love this dress!"
It's important to notice that the subject of a sentence can be occasionally omitted in English, while a subject can be occasionally added to the sentence in Japanese. (Hope you what I mean.) There are a variety of other particularities in Japanese, and I'm going to address them in my coming articles.
Would you mind if I re-posted your article to my blog about Japanese language study?
You can re-post my article to your blog on the condition that I am credited as the author of the article.
Wish you good luck with your Japanese study. :)
I wanna say "Thank you very much!!" for your kindness...
And I wanna read your next journal, also...
(But I can't correct your journal'cause your English is better than me.. ha ha)
コメントありがとう！英語で書いてくれたんですね。
"your English is better than me"・・・これはネイティブの方も書いてくれてるので冗談と受け止めておきます（笑）
ほかの日記も読んで感じたことがあれば、遠慮なく落書きしてください（日本語ＯＫです）
When we say "I was surprised", we're emphasizing that something shocked us and this is where our main focus is (or it's what we care about). You usually don't hear "He surprised me." when we are talking about ourselves because, bluntly, we don't care about the other person, we just care about what happened to us LOL...
It's sort of the same in Japanese, isn't it? (or that's how I learned it) The passive is used when we want to express something that happened to us and we felt sad, negative, unhappy about it. For example, 友達に笑われました。
It's a little difficult to grasp and even I don't understand the usage sometimes. I mainly use direct voice. The passive voice CAN be powerful and be put to use, but I don't know how. :P
1. She kissed him!
2. He was kissed by her!
1. The focus is on the girl who kissed. It seems like "I can't believe she did that!"
2. The focus is on the fact that the guy was kissed. The person observing this might be upset by the fact that another girl kissed him, regardless of who that girl was. (The upset person could be his girlfriend or someone who liked him also.)
I'm sorry if I'm confusing you LOL... Explaining your own language is hard!
Wow, thank you sooo much!!! I appreciate your kind and detailed explanations for me!!!
I understood how the active and passive voice differ from each other in English expressions.
While correcting a lot of entries other members (whose mother tongue is English) wrote in Japanese, I noticed that I sometimes needed to change the passive constructions used in English phrases into the active constructions in Japanese (Sorry for my bad explanation x( ). Since it's very interesting how passive is treated in Japanese expressions and how different they are from those in English, I'm going to write about it all in good time.
I'm not yet as familiar with English as I could figure out how English expressions I used actually sound to the native English speakers. (Oh, how many times I used "how"! LOL)
It helped me a lot that you suggested me about the importance of direct voice. :)
Even some kinds of intransitive verbs can have a seemingly passive construction, like 子供に泣かれる.
He said passive constructions came to the modern usage under the influence of Western languages. It was like the scales fell from my eyes when I heard this! LOL
Thank you so much for your comment! I appreciate it!!
Well, it must have been hard for you to read all of the corrections and comments on this post, ha-ha! I'm glad this article could be of some help to you. This is really one of the topics I've been wanting to write. As for personal pronouns, I'm planning to go into the detail of how they are actually used in Japanese.
お楽しみに～ （＾o＾）
I'm glad my fellow classmate (ジョナサンさん) asked me to read this, it did help me understand the usage of personal pronouns better. I'll be looking forward to your other articles. I will Definitely read them :D.
コメント本当にありがとうございます！かわいいなんて言われて、うれしいです （＾－＾）
I read the latest entry of your journal where you wrote that you changed your self-designation from Boku to Ore. These are "pronoun-like nouns" used by males, and Ore is a little ruder than Boku, but it sounds manlier at the same time. Japanese pronoun-like nouns are interesting in that they are not only used for pronouns, but often used to express the speaker's social identity.
But I am a bit confused about 自分. Are there any situations when it is good to use it? When shouldn´t I use it?
彼は自分の写真を撮った ("He took a photo of himself.")
自分のことは自分でしなさい。 ("Take care of your own affairs by yourself.")
But you can use it in the meaning of the first person, e.g.:
自分も時々そこへ行くんですよ ("I, too, go there every once in a while.")
It depends on the individual to whether to use 自分 instead of 私, 僕, or 俺. but it sounds a little formal and is preferred by men. One of my friends, though she is female, tends to use this word instead of 私.
The Japanese pattern of using the listeners name (eg. ルミさん) or role (eg. 先生) instead of a pronoun-like noun makes sense, but feels like it can be problematic at times. The thing I always think about is - what when I don't know the person I'm speaking to at all?
I mean, for example, I want to ask something a random person on the street. I know that I can use something like 「あのう」 to get his or her attention, and the mentioning of that person can be avoided in most situation like asking for time or directions. But when some person loses their... wallet, for example. I pick it up, and say 「すみません、この財布は・・・」 - and now, what? 「あなたのですか」 would be impolite, I think. I heard that 「そちら」 can be used in such circumstances - is that true?
Hmm, it's not that using あなた in polite speech is always impolite, though it's sometimes regarded as impolite to use あなた to our superiors or elders such as teachers and bosses.
In any case, we don't often use pronoun-like nouns in daily language. As you already know, we usually address someone by his/her name or title. You can say, ルミさんはケーキがお好きですか？ ("Do you like cakes, Roomy?") or 社長はこれをどう思いますか？ ('What do you think of this, Mr./Ms. President?"), as if you are talking about a third person.
The problem with calling someone you don't know about his/her name nor title is a little tricky. You can use あなた in such a case unless the listener is a little child. However, there are a lot of ways to call such a person. For example, when I call an old lady, I would say 奥さん regardless of her marital status. (Referring to as おばさん or おじさん can sometimes offend the listener's feeling.) If the person I'm talking to is a little boy, I would call him ぼく.
あなた is just one of many options to call someone by. In most cases, it's OK to say このお財布はそちら（or そちらさん）のですか？ though it depends on the speaker's personal preference.
I've heard many grade school aged kids in anime call high school aged people お兄さん/お姉さん. But I am not a grade school kid, and I realize that me calling some, say, 30-year-old man お兄さん would be no more than weird and laughable.
Hm... if you would use ぼく to call out a little boy, then how to call a little girl? あたし is not the right way, is it? :D
You should note that ぼく as a way of calling a little boy isn't used among kids. It's possible, though, that an adult man who refers to himself as ぼく calls a little boy ぼく.
お兄さん and お姉さん is often used when referring to young people. They aren't restricted to when referring to someone's elder brothers and sisters. Elderly people often call me お姉ちゃん. On the other hand, they sometimes use お兄さん or お姉さん when referring to a person older than they.
When we call a little girl, we don't use あたし, though I'm not sure if some people use it. The ordinary way of calling a little girl might be お姉ちゃん or お嬢ちゃん.
These two words are widely used in our everyday language, so they are almost synonymous with "young lady" and "young man" respectively. ちゃん is used to call them affectionately instead of さん.