I’ve been watching several Japanese shows with my gf and I’ve noticed that even if it’s just two people talking directly to each other, they call one another by their name. I don’t really know anything about the language, but I’m studying linguistics and am incredibly interested in learning about different languages to better understand them.
From what little I understand, it seems like they address each other with just their name instead of a word for you, but I could be wrong since I really don’t know much aside from what I’m acquiring based on our watching.
An example would be between “Person A” and “Person B.”
Person A said in an episode: “Person B shouldn’t worry” (from what I understood) instead of “*You* shouldn’t worry.”
Can someone clarify for me please? Thank you.
2 comments
In Japan it’s very rude to address someone as “you”, unless you are superior, or equal, to them in some way, or somehow have no other way to address them.
Pronouns aren’t very popular in Japanese and can be considered rude or awkward. The best way to address somebody is by name.
If you really need to specify that you’re talking about the other party, addressing them by name is the safest bet. あなた is probably the second safest, but Japanese is a highly contextual language. This means that you don’t really need to specify who you’re talking about because of the context of the conversation.
If I want to ask you to borrow your car, I could say: あなたの車を使ってもいいですか？ (Can I use your car?)
Except in this example あなた is unnecessary because obviously I’m talking about YOUR car. I don’t need to ask permission to use my own car, so you know I’m talking about YOUR car and not MY car based on context.