Thinking about first person Japanese pronouns with limited knowledge of the language

10 comments

1. 1. You seem to think pronouns are all about gender identity. While that very much is a factor, it’s more about politeness/directness than just your identity. You change your pronoun based on the situation… you may switch between 俺 and 私 several times a day.

   2. Again, it’s less about your identity and more about how you speak. Imagine the difference between “Could you please pass the salt?” and “Give me the salt.” An imperfect comparison, but how would speak to your significant others parent? If you wouldn’t say “Give me that salt” because it’s too rough, that is why you shouldn’t use 俺 in similar situations.

   3. I’m not sure what to tell you when you say “I don’t believe” they’re informal- they are, and your disbelief doesn’t change that. Also, just because they use the same kanji, doesn’t mean they’re the same word. Kanji are like spelling. Words can be spelt the same but have different meanings.

   While I did say it’s not entirely gender-based, a Japanese guy using あたし is very likely signaling that he is gay or at least considers himself feminine. A foreign guy using it… likely picked up the habit from his Japanese wife.

   4. It’s like using “thou” in real life. Maybe, in the right context, it might be funny as a joke. Otherwise just very weird.

   Edit: spelling

2. I’m afraid to say that many of your statements come off as very ignorant and ethnocentric — as if you’re more interested in imposing your judgment on how the Japanese language *should* be spoken (according to your Western sensibilities) rather than how Japanese people actually use their own language.

   For example, what in the world do you mean by “If anything, I should be the offended one and not them”?

   What does it matter what you “believe” about the formality of あたし or あたい? By your own admission, you’re a beginning learner with limited knowledge. Why are you presuming to define how Japanese people perceive their own language?

   Now, I’m going to try very hard to say this in a diplomatic way…

   If you actually go to Japan and call yourself 俺 in, e.g. a job interview — or call yourself 我 in *any* situation — you are going to get *a lot* of weird, confused looks. In many cases, people will just assume (correctly) that you’re a foreigner who doesn’t yet understand much about the Japanese language or culture.

   One of the things you mention in your post that *is* actually a thing in Japanese would be a man calling himself あたし, which you can definitely hear from, e.g., one of the ママさん at the many gay bars in 新宿二丁目.

3. It’s not about stereotypes or anything, it’s about how these words are perceived by others. And, like it or not, あたし is perceived as feminine informal and 俺 is perceived as masculine informal. So if you want to refer to yourself as whatever, go ahead, perfectly fine. Just know that it will most likely be perceived differently by others, and you can’t really be upset about it when it is.

4. German has gendered nouns. I think you should fix German nouns first and try fixing Japanese pronouns.

5. In your headline you are telling us that you have only a limited knowledge of the language, yet you are questioning set rules further down.

   When learning a new language you have to adapt to the language and culture, not the other way around

6. Yikes.

7. 1. In informal situations you can choose. No one is going to get offended if you refer to yourself as 俺 or あたし in front of friends. They will assume you’re gay or weird or not good at Japanese if you use the wrong gendered pronouns though. Note, there certainly are native Japanese girls who use 俺, but they are either weird or presenting themselves as butch.

   2. How is it offensive if you say “yo wattup dog” to your boss? It doesn’t matter why, Japanese people consider it offensive and so it is.

   3. This isn’t really a question and again it literally does not matter what you believe. The native speakers decided what their language means. You have no right to an opinion.

   4. If you’re a native speaker, people would think you’re being sarcastic or an arrogant ass. If non native, people would think you watch too much anime.

8. What you “believe” doesn’t matter; how Japanese people use and perceive the words is all that matters.

   1. Yes you can choose, and people will react in accordance with how that pronoun is generally used.

   2. It simply is.

   3. But they are, believe it or not.

   4. People would think you were weird.

9. Don’t think about it, do what you’re told.

10. > I don’t know why I should be offended

    > I don’t believe you. stereotypes need to be broken!

    > I should be the offended one, not them.

    > I don’t believe あたし, あたい, etc. are informal pronouns.

    We had an incident at my office last week and the lesson might be applicable here.

    We send technicians out across Japan to perform hardware repairs to devices often manufactured by American and other overseas companies. We got a ticket in to send someone onsite to perform a recalled hardware repair — the ticket had already been arranged by the overseas manufacturer and we were just being called in to do the labour.

    When we contacted the customer to arrange for the labour, he was already extremely upset with the process so far, and as such was somewhat difficult to work with. We didn’t know why, but eventually we were accidentally forwarded a copy of the customer’s communications with the manufacturer and we suddenly understood the issue.

    The manufacturer started off answering the customer’s Japanese email in English, which is already pretty rude given that the customer had contacted a “Japanese-language support address.” When the customer insisted that their ticket be handled in Japanese, the head office simply used machine translation software to write the mails. Not only were the mails confusing, but the “chatty casual” email style that is acceptable in business in America is absolutely not acceptable in business in Japan, particularly when the contents of the email is “our company sold you a defective product and now you’re having to arrange for repairs.” The emails’ tone was completely wrong. They had smily-faces in them, they started off with やあ as if it was a teenage boy talking to his friends, they spoke to the customer using plain Japanese.. It was no wonder at all that the customer was angry.

    My point is that even something that you **believe** should be acceptable, because it’s acceptable in your culture, is not necessarily acceptable in Japan. It’s somewhat arrogant of you to think that Japanese people should not be offended just because you don’t think they should be, and you might find that you piss off some people that you weren’t intending to.