For context i live in japan and for work sometimes I work with older Japanese people. I’m taking a collage Japanese class so I can semi speak and semi understand some Japanese. Anytime I work with them I try to speak as much Japanese as possible. I end up finding myself not using the “prideful” expressions as my professor calls them. For example I was riding in a work truck with an older Japanese man and he said よろしくおに害します and I responded with よろしく. I do this alot in conviencevence stores or in small interactions. Is it seen as a cultural difference or should I always use the “prideful” expressions instead?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/17ph2uy/does_the_cultural_difference_bother_older/
11 comments
It’s seen as “you don’t speak Japanese well enough” imho.
They probably don’t care much. If you know them real well you can start making jokes about it like よろしく！ Convenience stores people don’t generally care too much, but I usually just say どうも to them. Rural Japan I see the same convenience store clerks like every week, so sometimes I grab a conversation with them. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Why do you make a point of not adding お願いします ? It’s not as much a cultural difference as a lack of politeness.
If you know yoroshiku onegaishimasu, why can’t you say it yourself? They don’t care and will chalk it up you being bad at Japanese, but it’s weird you won’t just meet their level of politeness.
thats because it should be 鬼害します。
You are misunderstanding. That’s not cultural difference.
If one doesn’t go よろしく then that’s the distance you get with the person. You are in よろしくお願いします zone and not よろしく zone.
Just よろしく instead of よろしくお願いします sounds like “thanks, buddy”
The real question is how you say “thank you.” Boy, does my wife get pissed at her students when they just say “arigatou” or worse “doumo”.
I think you misunderstood your teacher. It is prideful to leave off the extensions. The shorter you make it, the more important you think you are (more prideful).
If they start with casual Japanese, then matching that level is fine. But actively choosing to not match their level of politeness is probably seen as weird/unusual.
Same here. You can’t go wrong with using keigo. In fact I just realized that I use keigo to everyone except my close friends, immediate family and small kids. I like to use keigo from tellers to cleaning ladies, just to show my respect and appreciation for their service. As a sidenote, you will probably better service if you use keigo.
It does to some extent – older ones are always more strict about the connection between language and the classical social heptarchy l hierarchy schemes, be it strangers or family. Also ones who are less educated on them will experience stronger sense of detachment for that. This is something to learn as we grow up in society.
Now this is also about the language, as mentioned, so in your specific case, it’s like those that omits “please” in English where expected. So yeah in that sense, this isn’t strictly about the culture. But then I think it
can be cultural matter depending on the view points. Adherence to such rule as a compulsory may be so. I hear that Sinosphere tends to share this manner.
Edit: There are manspreading language but I feel a bit odd when I hear from some of my foreigner friends. That though, is not because they’re rude (they’re friends) but just not quite coherent with their general ways of words. As in part of the sentence sounds like a thug and other parts being politician or something.. It could be that too.
And if you’re asking for opinion from Japanese then probably you’d better ask somewhere else (if not in Japanese then probably r/askajapanese). Or if it’s just a technical language question then r/LearnJapanese and a few other specific subs can help you.