Japanese pronouns

Pronouns in the Japanese language are used less frequently than they would be in many other languages [Maynard, Senko K: "An Introduction to Japanese Grammar and Communication Strategies", page 45. The Japan Times, 4th edition, 1993. ISBN 4-7890-0542-9] , mainly because there is no grammatical requirement to explicitly mention the subject in a sentence. So, pronouns can seldom be translated from English to Japanese on a one-on-one basis.

Most of the Japanese pronouns are not "pure": they have other meanings. In English the common pronouns have no other meaning: for example, "I", "you", and "they" have no use except as pronouns. But in Japanese the words used as pronouns have other meanings: for example, 私 means "private" or "personal"; 僕 means "manservant".

The words Japanese speakers use to refer to other people are part of the more encompassing system of Japanese honorifics and should be understood within that frame. The choice of pronoun will depend on the speaker's social status compared to the listener, the subject, and the objects of the statement.

As a general rule, the first person pronouns (e.g. "watashi", 私) and second person pronouns (e.g. "anata", 貴方) are avoided, especially in formal speech. In many sentences, when an English speaker would use the pronouns "I" and "you", they are omitted in Japanese. Personal pronouns can be left out when it is clear who the speaker is talking about. When it is required to state the topic of the sentence for clarity, the particle "wa" (は) is used, but it is not required when the topic can be inferred from context. Also, there are frequently used verbs that can indicate the subject of the sentence in certain circumstances: for example, "kureru" (くれる) means "give", but in the sense of "somebody gives something to me or somebody very close to me"; while "ageru" (あげる) also means "give", but in the sense of "someone gives something to someone(usually not me)". Sentences consisting of a single adjective (often those ending in "-shii") are often assumed to have the speaker as the subject. For example, the adjective "sabishii" alone can form a sentence meaning "I am lonely."

Thus, the first person pronoun is usually only used when the speaker wants to put a special stress on the fact that he is referring to himself, or if it is necessary to make it clear. In some situations it can be considered uncouth to refer to the listener (second person) by a pronoun. If it is required to state the second person explicitly, the listener's surname suffixed with "-san" or some other title (like "customer", "teacher", or "boss") is generally used.

Gender differences in spoken Japanese also bring about another challenge as men and women use different pronouns to refer to themselves. Social standing also determines how a person refers to themselves, as well as how a person refers to the person they are talking to.

List of Japanese pronouns

The following list is incomplete. There are numerous such pronoun forms that exist in Japanese, which vary by region, dialect, and so forth. This is a list of the most commonly used forms. "It" has no direct equivalent in Japanese.

ee also

*Gender differences in spoken Japanese
*Japanese titles

References

External links

* [http://www.jref.com/language/japanese_personal_pronouns.shtml Japan Reference: Personal pronouns in Japanese]
* [http://www.thejapanesepage.com/ime.htm The Japanese page.com: I, me, you, thou...]
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* [http://www.sljfaq.org/w/Pronouns sci.lang.japan wiki: Japanese pronouns]