Hello everyone! I see people use this 方 a lot in a way I’ve never understood recently, so I decided to ask about it here since I can’t find anything about it online. So, I was taught 方 first of all being read as かた not ほう. But more importantly I’ve only seen it be used like this:
漢字の読み方を教えてください。
かんじのよみかたをおしえてください。
Never like this (which is how I’ve seen it recently):
漢字を読める方~ (something starting like this)
かんじをよめるかた~
If you know anything about this/ other ways to use 方 besides the (how to~) format, please let me know!! 🫂 (Also I do know about 方がいい and also, for example, 犬より猫の方が好きです。)
ありがとうございます!
3 comments
方 (かた) can also mean “person”, so I would interpret the example 漢字を読める方 as “somebody who can read kanji”. For the “how to” meaning, 方 always uses the ます stem (as far as I know), and it wouldn’t make sense here anyway, since the sentence uses the potential form of the verb.
And just to point out, in the 方がいい structure, 方 is read as ほう.
Yup, more polite version of 人
In Japanese films I’ve seen. There’s this setting in the hospital where the nurse calls the next person. She said, tsugi no kata douzo!