Hello, I’m a complete beginner to Japanese, and I was wondering, what exactly is the best way to say “you” while remaining polite? For instance for a stranger or a colleague I don’t know well? I’ve read that pronouns like ”you” aren’t always necessary in Japanese, however, if I do want to use “you” (for example for the sake of clarity), how do I do that?
I have naturally tried to look it up, and the main answer I got for a neutral “you” was あなた; however, some websites say that it can be seen as rude and/or that it’s a rather informal way of speaking. I haven’t seen many other respectful possibilities for “you” besides addressing the person by their surname plus さん (or, if it’s someone in a much superior position, 様). I mean, it seems weird to me to continuously repeat the name of the person; in addition, what if I don’t know their name?
Is it possible to use the suffix さん alone, like if I want to address someone as Mr. or Mrs.?
I’ve read about quite a few other possibilities of “you”, nevertheless the other ones I’ve come across are either overly familiar or outright rude. Furthermore, I’ve read that it may depend on the gender of the speaker, but I didn’t understand that part.
Could anyone please help me with that?
17 comments
>I mean, it seems weird to me to continuously repeat the name of the person; in addition
It’s fine, it’s actually the polite thing to do.
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>what if I don’t know their name?
Simply don’t use a pronoun then. It’s fairly common to omit the pronoun when speaking in Japanese.
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>Is it possible to use the suffix さん alone
No, you need to have a name attached.
You are “allowed” to use ‘anata’ if they’re a complete stranger and you’ve not introduced yourselves. It is the most polite form of ‘you’ and it’s the general ‘you’ that is used in textbooks.
It is impersonal though and you are expected to remember names although you get a bit of a pass as a foreigner for this. A lot of people kind of get that foreign names are hard to keep straight.
Other forms of you are varying degrees of impolite, rude, or basically asking for a fight. Real life is not an anime, in my time here, I’ve never heard temee. Lads might use kimi and omae with their friends, but you don’t need to worry about this. Anta is just short/casual anata and is pretty rough. I’ve actually only heard it a couple of times in real life.
However, Japanese is a very high context language so you basically never need anata. Maybe when your Japanese is bad and you can’t dance around needing a name or title but I’ve been here 2 years or so and arrived with basically nothing and I think I only use it when asked to translate.
Most honorifics including -san, need to be attached to a name.
Things are in a weird order because the editor is messing with me and I can’t rearrange stuff for some reason.
[Jisho.org on “you”](https://jisho.org/search/%22you%22). There isn’t a word that is super polite anymore, there are some that are ok with friends though.
Don’t use just さん.
If you aren’t close enough to know their name just don’t use anything, it’s easier than in English. It just takes getting used to.
If you do know their name you don’t need to use it every sentence but it’s better than saying the wrong pronoun.
The gender words are words that are geared towards usage to a girl or a boy. A good example is the word “I”.
あたし、(very cutesy feminine) わたし、(beginners or girls) ぼく、(masculine) おれ (very masculine).
If you’ve seen the movie “Your Name” there’s a scene that features this.
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てめえ and 貴様 are pretty good
If you don’t know the person’s name, remove the [名前/あなた]は, and if you know their name, use their name (add san at the end when speaking formally) also, in Japanese it’s common not to include the person’s name or you in the beginning of a sentence
Just point at them and say what you need to say
I always thought 君は (きみは) was the formal way to say you.
Please use name and san after that if you don’t know that person well. If they are friend then you would have a pronoun for them probably. If you are strangers use sumasen and get straight to business
There’s also そちら and そなた as polite forms of “you”. They’re a bit stiff and old fashioned, but not impolite.
Say their name instead.
“you” is like never used in conversation. “anata/kimi” are mainly used in songs, movie titles, etc.
usually, you will just add -san to their name to be respectful.
instead of saying “I like shopping, what about you?” , you would say “I like shopping, what about John-san?” (when speaking directly to them).
People have already answered you and you probably know your answer. But I do want to give you some advice as a ‘complete beginner’. You say ‘I’ve read that…’ ‘however If I do want to…’ I understand why you’re asking. But I think you may have put unnecessary importance on this because it doesn’t make sense for you to not say ‘you’ in English. So you may think that, ‘In English For the sake of clarity I need to use you’. And I say, you’re starting backwards. It’s hard to break out of your native language. But the best part for me was to stop trying to interpret Japanese with English. It’s hard. Every fibre of my knowledge wants to use ‘you’. I find myself wanting to put subjects into sentences because it seems wrong or awkward without it. But I have to force myself to stop. My point is, if everywhere says don’t do it. Then don’t. Don’t even think that maybe you’ll want to or need to use it for clarity sake. As a beginner don’t. Learn the language seperate from the rules or English. And when you’ve done that, then figure out when it’s okay to use ‘you’.
I just watched a Netflix anime. And the Japanese word was ‘はい’. The subtitles said ‘no’. Why? Doesn’t make sense. ‘Hai’ is ‘yes’ right? Why would it translate to ‘no?’ Because the idea of ‘hai’ as ‘yes’ is using English to interpret Japanese. But it’s a different language. It works differently. So best to learn it as it works inside itself. In what context does ‘hai’ mean yes. And it what context does it mean something else? In this example, they were asking for negative confirmation. ‘Is it not this?’ And in English we would so ‘no it’s not.’ In Japanese I guess they say ‘yes it’s not’. That’s why ‘hai’ translates to ‘no’.
Long explanation and a bit of a ramble. Sorry.
> I have naturally tried to look it up, and the main answer I got for a neutral “you” was あなた; however, some websites say that it can be seen as rude and/or that it’s a rather informal way of speaking.
It’s not informal; it’s specifically a little bit rude, in most contexts. It sounds imperious to use it. The biggest exception is stuff like computer messages, advertisements, etc., where one cannot plausibly be expected to know the name of the reader/listener.
Using the name is best, though in Japanese most sentences are fine without one. You may also use titles or kinship terms, such as お姉さん, 先生, お客さん and so on, in some circumstances.
It’s in the verbs.
At beginner level, “Anata” and desu/masu forms are safe.
As you advance, and especially as you start watching Japanese movies involving polite modern business conversations, you will see that Japanese people use (the dreaded) Keigo (polite language) as a way of clarifying who is the subject of the sentence while omitting the subject of the sentence.
University students will use a kind of simple keigo where they just use される instead of する。Like, どんな研究をされていますか。
The farther you get with Japanese, the more you will be struck by how often subjects of sentences are omitted. Indeed, sometimes it feels like the most important part of every sentence is legally required to remain unspoken.
Asked a Japanese person this a year back or so.
Name + さん = third person addressing for formal speech
あなた/name = you (singular, casual)
きみ = you (singular, familiar)
Or just don’t use a subject if it’s obvious. And no, you cannot use さん alone. It’s a suffix.
Simple answer: avoid あなた, use their name+さん as often as possible (it’s perfectly normal to do so in Japanese) and in the case that you don’t know their name, you can use certain markers like お母さん, お父さん (even if they’re not your parents), professional names like 先生, or “familiar” names like お兄さん (for younger men), お姉さん (younger women) etc.