Raichu Wrote:I don't know about the company you guys keep, but the Japanese people I've spoken to say they would never use coarse language like that, even in casual speech, and one of them who had kids said he'd be pretty miffed if his children spoke in language like that.

Safe to say, out of all the Japanese people I know, no one would claim those words to be bad words. Most of them would not use 俺 maybe but they wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someone else did, and I know 20 year olds to 40 year olds.

Young people using してやる isn't coarse at all. A guy using 俺 when talking to his male friends is just fine. You can't simply label words "bad", it's neither slang nor swearwords.

I can't even begin to understand why the japanese people you know wouldn't use yarou, it's just yarimashou but not in polite form, how do they even communicate with their family?

Tobberoth Wrote:I can't even begin to understand why the japanese people you know wouldn't use yarou, it's just yarimashou but not in polite form, how do they even communicate with their family?

He was probably refering to 野郎.

SammyB Wrote:I'm reading through death note at the moment, and there are lots of things I don't totally understand, or words I don't know... but if I stopped to look each one up I know I wouldn't bother reading at all. So my question: is this okay? I can still generally follow what is going on.

I'm in the same situation, don't worry about it. As long as you are enjoying it and learning something, you are on the right path. There are parts of Death Note that native speakers say are hard to follow, so for anyone in our position, you will never understand it all in one go. Heck, if you could, you'd be rounding third base on your way home in Japanese studies. Yet for all that, there are large chunks of the story that are surprisingly easy to follow.
As for how often to look up words, that's a judgment call. If I keep seeing the same word over and over, I will look it up. If I understand everything in a sentence except for one word, I will often look that one up too. It's useful to look up more words in the first volume of a manga series, since they frequently use the same basic vocabulary throughout. Sometimes though, if I'm reading on a train or curled up in bed I just keep reading straight through.

iSoron Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:I can't even begin to understand why the japanese people you know wouldn't use yarou, it's just yarimashou but not in polite form, how do they even communicate with their family?

He was probably refering to 野郎.

Oh... then yeah, that could be classified as a bad word aswell I guess... but I mean it's a manga, they have to call their enemies something. "You're a... a... MEANIE!"