It is commonly admitted that the Japanese equivalents for “you”, like あなた for example, sound rude and/or unnatural, and therefore one should use the other person’s name as the subject, or drop the subject entirely when there’s no ambiguity.
But there are instances where both solutions don’t work. Let’s say someone parked their car in front of yours and is blocking it. You want to ask them “Is this your car ?”.
Is “すみません、これはあなたの車ですか？” correct in this context, or is there a better way to say it that doesn’t use あなた ?
Basically, how would a native say it ?
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My sense is that that’s actually a pretty good time to use あなた, because it’s sort of formal and distanced and without too much feeling involved–your situation isn’t exactly covered in [this article](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/anata/), but it seems close!
I could easily be wrong about this though, and would welcome any counter-feelings.
This is a question of being polite. If another person is brought in to the conversation without being introduced I’ve heard them being referred to in relation to the original conversation partner, e.g. お友達さんはどう思いますか. In business settings it can happen through the profession, e.g. お秘書さんに任せますね
If you are accusing someone of an offence or calling them out for an inconvenience, you don’t need to sound polite though. あなた works here. If you do want to sound polite just phrase it like: Excuse me, could you move your car
I agree with u/Zarlinosuke that this is a case in which it certainly wouldn’t be unheard of to use it. (It’s worth keeping in mind that learners are discouraged from using あなた because many tend to *overuse* it by literally and unnaturally translating every single case of English “you” into あなた– *not* because it’s completely and utterly wrong or taboo to *ever* use it. It’s still a Japanese word that native speakers will use when they need it or find it appropriate.)
That said, it’s also worth pointing out that even in this case it’s completely possible to rephrase the question in a way that’s more indirect and doesn’t require using an equivalent of “you”. You could say something like この車は…？（誰の車でしょうか？）, with or without the parenthetical part explicitly stated, i.e. “This car is…? (Whose is it?)” which accomplishes the same thing without directly “accusing” the other person.
Moving away from the specific car example into similar cases, there would be times (it doesn’t quite work with the car example) where word choice can get the point across without using a “you” word. Like if you see a child on their own you want to ask a woman if that’s her child, using the honorific e.g. お子さん／お子様ですか？ would indicate that you’re talking about *that* person’s child.
Then sometimes generic words like 奥さん or お父さん, お兄さん, 先生, マスター／大将, etc. can be used to refer to a person without using their name.
Other times using a different verb form can get the idea across, like if there was something that had been left on your desk and a person you didn’t know was standing right by, you could ask, すみません、（これ）置かれました？（using an honorific) or すみません、これって (again, leaving the “who” unstated as in the car example).
So again, yes, in this specific case you could be relatively safe in using あなた here, but you have to understand that the question you’re asking is in a sense being influenced by your English language perspective. You’re thinking of what you’d say in the situation in English (which naturally includes “you”) and trying to think of how to express that in Japanese. Whereas a native speaker would be aware of any number of ways to get their sentiment across naturally which don’t necessarily require a second-person pronoun to begin with.
I think you would use something-something人 where something-something is descriptive of that person when speaking with somebody else about the person in question.
In your case however, I think it’s fine to ask indirect questions, if you feel that あなた might not be suitable here. Something like “Whose car is this?”. It really makes no difference whether you ask “Is this your car?” or “Whose car is this?”, now does it?
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Broadly speaking, generally safe:
Men 旦那さん
Women 30+ 奥さん
Younger お姉さん
A family group, you can use what the youngest person there would call the person you’re addressing.
Rule 1: Don’t use Anata. That is a rule you should just adhere to, until you are immersed in Japanese and can just do what they do. There are nuances to it, but in a pro-drop language, you never *need* to use any pronouns, ever, when speaking. Some people do use them, but some people simply *never* use pronouns. That is a surprisingly regional difference, and a strong gendered difference as well, as well as a strong age component. And pronouns are exceptional hierarchical, and you may have to verbal judo some people trying to express dominance away from using them towards you, by using the demeaning pronouns back to them, until they get the picture that you are equals. The main point though is that some people simply never use pronouns, unless you are calling (kanojo meaning girlfriend, and Kare meaning boyfriend) pronouns. And pronouns are *never* required in speech.
Fact 1: Despite what I wrote above, directions and owners manuals use Anata all the time.
Weird Fact B: Anata (and other second person pronouns) are often used with the same connotations as honey or darling would be in English between married couples. Which, yeah, bizarre, but..
In the particular example given, you might be overthinking it, though. In English, it would be aggressive to ask someone if the car blocking you in is *their* car, and simple experience would lead you to expect a defensive reaction to what amounts to an accusation.
So we would ask if they knew whose car it was. Given that we would not use YOU in the English, you know for sure we would not be using ANATA in the Japanese. If using YOU would be aggressive in English (and it is in this situation), then using ANATA would be even more so in Japanese.
I typically use titles, (eg おねえさん、おじょうさん、おじさん) until I learn their name.
You can use そちらの instead, but go ahead and use あなた when it’s difficult to avoid.