pronouns

[piranha]

i am hearing a lot of pronoun use between the main characters on the fujimi drama CDs, which started me looking for more information.

when i made my first attempt at japanese, i learned some pronouns, such as "watakushi" (i) and "anata" (you) and constructed sentences with them. this turns out to have been a bad approach, because it's a bastardization of how japanese actually speak, tailored to foreigners whose native languages rely heavily on pronouns. lots of japanese intro programs do not actually teach this well, and it's something to watch out for. the first couple of textbooks i picked up originally taught a form of japanese that i never hear spoken now that i am watching anime and jdorama. "watakushi wa gakusei desu" (i am a student) isn't something a japanese person would say, unless there are several of them, only one of whom is a student, who'd say that for clarification (_i_ am a student (the others are business people, frex)).

this time around i am learning that the japanese use pronouns much less than english speakers do, preferring to use the name of a person and zir title instead, or saying "that guy there" or "this guy here", or dropping the pronoun entirely when it's obvious from context who's doing what. and really, grammatically the following aren't actually pronouns, but nouns themselves.

and i am noticing that frequently scanlators don't seem to really grok this either, because their translations into english sound off to me. frex "that guy" should generally be "he" in english; it sounds way too ominous otherwise.

anyway -- damn. :) there i was, wanting more pronouns in english, and here i would get even fewer?

but no. it's actually way cool. pronouns, like just about anything else, denote politeness and intimacy, and it seems their use can be incredibly subtle -- i really like this idea. when i learned english, part of me didn't much care for the one-size-fits-all usage of "you" [1], and i missed the formal forms of german and french. well, i am gonna get that in japanese, and then some. here are some of the ones i have come across as i understand them so far. i'm bolding the ones that seem common to me.

i, me, myself and i:
拙者 (せっしゃ) sessha -- archaic; used mostly in samurai movies
私 (わたくし) watakushi -- very formal
儂 (わし) washi -- oldfashioned formal, used by elderly men
我 (われ) ware -- male, probably archaic; polite or not? i am guessing not.
私 (わたし) watashi -- commonplace, respectable politeness level for both male and female
私 (あたし) atashi -- informal, used by women who want to sound cute
私 (あたい) atai -- archaic informal used by women
僕 boku (ぼく) boku -- familiar, colloquial, used by males
俺 ore (おれ) ore -- very familiar, rough, crude, used by young males
手前 (てまえ) temae -- modest, female. watch VERY carefully because this is an extremely strong insult when used in the second person.
one's own name -- cute speech, used by children and excessively cute females
自分 (じぶん) jibun -- reflexive: myself; oneself;

you singular (these can all be rude if used outside their normally appropriate situations, and it's safer to use the person's name with polite suffix appended if one isn't sure):
汝 (なんじ) nanji -- archaic, something like "thou"
あなた anata -- polite; can also be very familiar denoting "dear" (women call husbands anata)
お前 (おまえ) omae -- this is an iffy one. used from superior to inferior, but is also used between close friends, maybe bantering? i think i've seen it used by couples as well. this one i am the least sure about.
君 (きみ) kimi -- familiar, used for friends and family, affectionate
貴方 (あんた) anta -- very familiar, used by females
貴様 (きさま) kisama -- seems to have mogrified from original honorific (when?) to insulting. don't use this unless you mean to be quite rude.
手前 (てまえ or てめえ) temae, temee -- extremely rude and confrontational; fists might be flying next.

it's really interesting to hear when in fujimi yuuki starts using "kimi" in regard to kei. i think it denotes a big change in their relationship. i am not entirely clear about seme/uke dynamics in that regard; i'll need to listen to it again from the start, and particularly listen for it now that those words "pop" for me. yuuki does seem to use some feminine language when he's protesting.

[1] my inner egalitarian likes it, of course; it's only my inner prickly cactus with the fetish for nuance that wants lots of ways to indicate how i feel about somebody.

Comments

[redbird]

Spanish-speakers use "I" less often than English-speakers, because the verb carries that information: one wouldn't say Yo estoy aqui, normally, just estoy aqui; saying "yo" (I) would be emphasis, like answering "Where is everyone?" with "I'm here" to indicate something like "They may be late, but I'm on time" or point out that the questioner is taking the speaker for granted.

pronouns in spanish

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. that's only true for the first person singular in spanish though, yes?

in japanese the verb doesn't carry that information. it is derived entirely from context, as far as i can tell, and carried along through several sentences at times. which explains why i am seeing regular requests for "give more context" in places where people ask for japanese translations.

Re: pronouns in spanish

[eagle]

It's been a long time since I took Spanish, but from what I vaguely remember, while this is particularly true of yo, it's true in general of most nominative case pronouns. The verb conjugation carries the pronoun, so the pronoun is only necessary if there's an ambiguity and it's common to omit it when there isn't. (One common ambiguity, though, is that the third person singular is also used for the second person singular formal, so that usted frequently shows up as a clarification.)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I think about the subject projouns in Japanese similarly to how I think about them in Latin. In both cases, they're included in the verb which goes at the end of the sentence or phrase. In Latin, they're included in a way that tells you what subject pronoun (amo = I love, amas = you love, te amo = I love you); in Japanese, you have to figure that out another way, but the one word "Wakarimasu" means "I understand" (or you understand, but that's not as likely a sentence) and the most likely meaning for "Nomimasen ka" is "Won't you drink?" (an invitation). "Ka", in case you haven't worked it out, is a question thing, an interrogative particle. So the other person could answer "Nomimasu" (I drink = yes) or "Nomimasen" (I don't drink).

Just like Latin, you can put in the subject pronoun if you want to make some special emphasis. "Ego te amo" = *I* love you. "Watashi wa ocha ga nomimasen kedo ... "="Well, actually, as for me, I don't drink tea, but [I'm sorry to cause problems for you, is there an option, etc]" "Kedo" is like "but", used for trailing off a sentence as well as for sticking two sentences together. "wa" and "ga" are particles, the "ga" is more emphatic than the "wa".


Comparing your list with the pronouns I learned in formal classes, we started with watashi and anata, the men in our classes learned to use boku and - I think - temae, I also learned to use kimi.

[diminishedsheep.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting, because when I learned japanese, we were supposed to avoid using pronouns at all. If we were introducing ourselves to a group, we were allowed to begin a paragraph with "watashi no namae wa..." but otherwise, we had to omit pronouns as much as possible.

While using the occaisional "I" was forgivable, she would throw chalk at us if we said "you" even once. (Which was hilarious.) Even "anata," the fairly standard "you" was considered rude.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*heh*. well, i think that's much closer to reality than my first exposure. was your teacher native japanese?

i don't hear "anata" used much at all. though just today i did, in loveless, where ritsuka also used "anta". since he's 12 that might be one of those things that are typical for children. the girl at whom he directed it wasn't happy with it; she wanted him to use her name instead, and he then gave her a little lecture about how he'd do that if she were to stop referring to herself in the third person and used "(w)atashi" instead. it was very obvious that the ueber-kawaii 3rd person talk was something he saw as denoting low self-esteem.

that was pretty cool to hear right on the heels of having worked out the above.

[mechaman.livejournal.com]

Anata isn't quite so standard anymore from what I've seen. Basically the problem is it assumes familiarity, superficially or more. Which, well, levels of propriety, etc. When I tried a college course (made the mistake of trying for a summer course for Japanese), they bluntly said "Do not use unless to your intended." Which is stretching it, but they were trying to drill it into the head of people who were going to be using these skills Soon.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

why was the summer course a mistake?

they do, i guess, have to teach in more absolute terms than reality, to protect people from making really stupid mistakes. it's much more forgiveable to err on the side of politeness than to be overly familiar, after all.

but it's why i prefer to immerse myself in popular culture in addition to standard educational stuff; i'm interested in the feel, and i never get that from classroom or book learning.

[mechaman.livejournal.com]

It's a mistake more because they can't, for the same reasons, allow much in the way of 'slack' when you're trying to grasp (or more accurately pronounce) things. It's very literally 'if you have any stumbling, you're dead' in the format and manner they were doing the course.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

That is what I found also. We were never allowed to use pronouns and were strongly warned against them over and over.

I found the "32 weeks of japanese in 8 weeks" classes to be an extreme mistake for myself. I did very poorly in them, and even worse in the two regular classes that followed. The basics just didn't get into my head well enough in such a short time. I felt like I was trying to learn the language by rote memorization, and that really didn't work for me.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

°nod*. i can see how such classes simply can't, by design, adjust to individual strengths and weaknesses. sorry to hear you both had such bad experiences -- did that lead to giving up on japanese altogether?

_some_ rote memorization is useful, but in general i do much better if i actually understand the mechanics behind something. these days i only learn vocabulary by rote, and study grammar right from the start.

[mechaman.livejournal.com]

No, that was entirely other issues. :/ And also partial embarrassment since many of these teachers were still going to be so.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

this is a great post. thank you for making it! I notice words like "watashi" and "omae" (as in you should become Seigaku's pillar of support, and now i want to know if that's the first time Tezuka's ever affixed a pronoun to his dialogue with Ryoma) and "atashi" all the time, without ever picking up on the subtlety of the usage, and this will make things a lot more interesting/clearer for me. Thank you.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*bounce*. i am glad it's useful! i get so much enjoyment from so many of your posts (not to mention my first true anime love, hikago) that it's nice to be able to give something in return.

so in tenipuri "omae" is used in a positive sense among friends? i'm gonna continue to collect data on this one.

i've definitely noticed that the frequency of pronoun use goes up when boys start sleeping with each other, *snicker*. during the apparently nearly inevitable initial rape we get the unfriendly ones, then later when true love prevails, the friendly ones.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

When Tezuka says it to Ryoma he's telling him to become Seigaku's pillar of support (omae wa seigaku no hashira ni nare, hahaha, the only japanese phrase i know by heart) so it's probably definitely being used as a directive from a superior to a subordinate; but what interests me is that I suspect it's the first time he's ever used a pronoun with Ryoma at all.

Civen that they've just had tennis sex their first match together, i think that the usage probably is a demarcation of the significance of the moment; an establishment of the intimate understanding between their characters that extends and provides a foundation for the rest of the series. It isn't unfriendly in context so much as challenging. And - yeah, intimate, definitely.

I didn't mean to turn this into a meta-y TezuRyo ramble, so I'll just say that I'm SO GLAD you fell in love with Hikago - there's just so so so much to love about it. And, yes. I'm really delighted.

And not at all trying to refrain from squealing about how you should watch Nobuta wo Produce next, because I know Hikago is full of so much awesome and culls forth so much love that it's difficult to imagine anything topping that right now. except that Nobuta is the most moving and wonderful thing I've ever seen in my life. and, you know. when you're ready to try J-drama...

OH P.S. an interesting fact about Fujimi no Orchestra that I meant to mention the other day, and forgot. The voice actor of the uke character in that ova is Tezuka's voice actor in Prince of Tennis. Which in itself is not noteworthy; except that, um, pillars (hashira) are kind of integral to their characters in both storylines, as I'm sure you'll recall. So the upshot of that is that every time Tezuka tells Ryoma to become his pillar of support, I inevitably see Ryoma getting pinned by, um. Tezuka's giant pillar as it falls on top of him. This is what Japan has done to my brain.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

challenging and intimate, yeah, that might well be a significant way in which omae is used. it'll be cool to search out other instances of it now that i know more what to watch for. i love all this subtle stuff; it makes me feel closer to a new language when i can feel nuances like that.

and yeah, okiayu ryoutarou; i am infatuated with his voice. i admit to adding anime to my viewing list solely based on certain seiyuus now. weiss kreuz, *sigh*. not so good. ow, i've got it bad. :) fortunately, fullmetal alchemist is next; that's bound to be better.

ghod, the telephone pole bit had me rolling on the floor with laughter. *cackle*. and the latter repeat, where we get some extra metaphor because the pole is now leaning on him instead of crushing him. precious. i can feel my brain rotting even while i laugh.

so far i am resisting the princely tennis crack because there is so much of it that it scares me. but oi, i see tezuka wears glasses. *fans self*.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

*tempts*

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

nice try. except that i am immune, i tell you, IMMUNE. because i am just coming off this:

soubi from loveless

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

....which is why I tell you that this is Ryoma. The star of our show.





he's a cheeky, bratty, sulky 12 year-old. He's adorable, endearing, and amazing at tennis.

And he's voiced by Minagawa (sp?) Junko. Whom I believe you know as the voice of Ritsuka.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

mmh, bratty! my, he _is_ cute. and not _too cute_, ya know? i don't like them when they get too girly and big-eyed.

my favourite brats right now are:

kyou from fruits basket

hatsuhara, ditto, especially in his black mode.

but really, men in glasses are still hotter than brats. shuhei chiaki from mirage of blaze. mmh.

that icon of yours is of some of my favourite colour art in hikago. so beautiful. just thinking about it makes me want to go right back to it. :)

Soubi from Loveless

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Now that is some pretty.

Have you seen Saiyuki art yet? The early manga is laughable, and Minekura still has a little problem with eyes later on, but you get very sexy things, too.

(Also: Fruits Basket manga is a thousand times wonderful, sweet and loving and much darker than the anime gets. I'm not done with Fullmetal Alchemist yet, but I like that an awful lot too.)

Re: Soubi from Loveless

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

soubi is so very attractive, and i don't actually _like_ masochistic, submissive men, *sigh*. i adore how loveless twists the seme/uke dynamic around several times.

yeah, i've seen saiyuki art because telophase goes on and on about saiyuki *heh*. it's definitely on my list to read, right after FMA. i started liking minekura kazuya when i came across a short called bus gamer. man, i have to write so many reviews. oh, and deathnote is impressive as well (i could have caught that from telophase too, but i had ignored it all, until i started looking for what else obata takeshi of hikago fame had done).

fruits basket manga is made of the awesome. i cried, and more than once. i am so buying it in japanese, even if i'll go bankrupt.

though i do not understand why there isn't more anime. i am actually ok with the way they ended it, but there's certainly enough material for a whole second run of it.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist, even with the horrible dubbing. I really want to get ahold of the whole series in japanese at some point. There is quite a bit of combat in it, but the alchemical ideas they use are pretty interesting.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i find myself very amusing in my reaction to dubs right now -- i basically grew up with dubs of everything; films, tv shows, from both east and west -- very good dubs really, and when i came over here i never saw why certain "purists" were railing against dubs.

well, now that i have developed a liking for anime and for japanese seiyuus i totally scorn the english dubs. they sound wrong, wrong, WRONG. i mean, even the good ones. fruits basket frex actually has an excellent dub, but *pah*. i want my japanese. in live action films subtitling bothers me because there's so much action that i cannot easily follow what's happening and read at the same time (partly it's bandwidth, partly it's because focus on the subtitles pushes the rest of the screen out of focus), and the split attention annoys me. but in anime the action is relatively slow and it works much better for me.

i am wondering whether the germans dub anime. *checks*. ah, of course. i should order something i want to get anyway and check it out. with so many years experience in dubbing those are likely to be considerably better than your average english dub.

[firecat]

Have you spent much time studying the sentence-ending words yet? (yo, zo, etc.) (I don't know the proper term for them.) My book Japanese the Manga Way goes into them early on, which is fun because they're easy to hear when you don't know much Japanese yet.

sentence-ending words

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

they're all particles (but i don't know if the ones at the end of sentences have a more specific term).

i sorta know what several of them are used for, but not in any detail; pretty much all the nuance is as yet lost on me. let's see, i have an impression of these:

ka - question marker
kana - "i wonder"
kashira - "i wonder" used by women
na - negative imperative, men, "don't do that"
naa - wishful thinking, "wouldn't it be nice"
ne - "isn't it?", "right?" this one is used way, way, way much, especially by women
nee - same as ne, except a bit more emphasized
no - informal question marker (for no desu ka)
yo - strong assertion, command
wa - women use this, it sounds like it softens the sentence
sa - men use this to emphasize, but not as strong as yo
zo - also used by men, also emphasis, not sure how it differs

Re: sentence-ending words

[firecat]

I get the impression zo connotes stronger emphasis than yo. In my Pimsleur tapes, which teach polite Japanese, they teach ka, ne, and yo. I would guess the rest are probably informal and/or gender specific. They teach 'saaaa' as something like an expression of regret ('saaaa, wakarimasen').