Is “anata” only used by women ?

5 comments

1. anata can be used by man and woman. It is polite and it has many subtle differences. Omae is rude but very commonly used between young friends for example. woman do not used it much.

2. anata is also something a wife calls her husband. anata (you) is generally not very polite. as soon as you know a persons name it is much better to just use it.

3. Not sure why people are downvoting this.

   No, anata is used by males and females. In popular media you may get the impression they use it more, as.. in general.. Japanese women tend to use softer politer speech than men do. (I know this is a generalisation and that there are exceptions).

   There are terms “atashi” (first person pronoun, I), the “wa” particle (at the end of sentences) that are only used by women, but anata is gender neutral.

4. There’s also kimi. Or Ore wa, boko wa

5. Anata can be polite, but ‘you’ in Japanese should be avoided and used only if you have no other way to refer to them. Men and women use it. ‘You’ just isn’t that common in Japanese, at least compared to English. You are expected to use people’s names with the proper suffix or title. If you know someone’s name but you keep saying ‘anata’, it sounds rude.

   おねえさん Young lady　花田さん Hanada-san　お客さま Customer　先生　Teacher, doctor, educated professional おにいさん Young man 黒田先生 Teacher/doctor Kuroda

   Those are some examples of ways people refer to people politely. You’ll also often see people refer to people by their role in the conversation. For example, you wouldn’t call your doctor ‘you’, you call them ‘sensei.’ It can be hard to break the habit of using ‘you’, but it’s one you have to break if you not eventually offend someone.

   If you must use ‘you’ on a man but don’t know his name, I would go with ‘oniisan’ which just means ‘young man.’ But generally, you introduce yourself to someone right away so you this isn’t a common situation, name or title is always the best.