Very interesting and informative discussion.

My wife hates if I use きみ so I always call her by name. I usually use ちゃん or　さん depending on the situation.

jonjimbo2000 Wrote:Very interesting and informative discussion.

My wife hates if I use きみ so I always call her by name. I usually use ちゃん or　さん depending on the situation.

You add さん at the end of her name? Isn't that kind of weird as she's your wife? That would be sort of like calling her Mrs. "Name." Plus she's in the same family so there's no need to distance yourself from her like that right?

bizarrojosh Wrote:

jonjimbo2000 Wrote:Very interesting and informative discussion.

My wife hates if I use きみ so I always call her by name. I usually use ちゃん or　さん depending on the situation.

You add さん at the end of her name? Isn't that kind of weird as she's your wife?

I do it in a joking way.

Oh, good to know!

bizarrojosh Wrote:

jonjimbo2000 Wrote:Very interesting and informative discussion.

My wife hates if I use きみ so I always call her by name. I usually use ちゃん or　さん depending on the situation.

You add さん at the end of her name? Isn't that kind of weird as she's your wife?

My wife uses さん when she talks to me sometimes.

I'm really getting the feeling there's no hard/fast rule here. Just go with what you think the other person wants to hear. When you fail at this telepathic ability, be ready sometime in the future at them going off on you.

Tzadeck Wrote:I've read that both きみ and あなた are used with guys to their girlfriends. People already mentioned about きみ. I hear that あなた sounds feminine coming from a guy, but it makes the girl feel equal and hopefully comfortable. Anybody know anything about this?

From what I have heard from other Japanese girls, they hate being referred to as きみ by their boyfriends. Apparently it's very old-fashioned.

IceCream Wrote:Don't think i've ever heard a girl use お前.

I heard a girl use it in reference to someone she didn't like that much (and she said it to that person's face). They weren't sworn enemies or anything like that, though.

Just address everyone as おぬし, works for me. Bonus points if you refer to yourself as せっしゃ.

Nope, I don't play too many video games or anything like that.

In Oita-ken, almost everyone uses おまえ at home to family members. My fiancee's father affectionately calls my fiancee おまえ、 and vis-a-vis. However, the main characteristic of the dialect in Oita is that it's so intimate that it's rough (we use おる instead of いる in casual conversation...) So in family settings, おまえ has a rough but touchingly close connotation to it.

HOWEVER... The flip side is that someone who is not family will be royally incensed if you talk that casually to them (especially strangers). Friends might use it, but usually in a playfully insulting way. Otherwise, you hear it used when someone is telling a stranger (like a passing adult to an unrelated, misbehaving kid) to behave themselves and knock it off. Catching a stranger's attention with おまえ would be pretty aggressive, although old people still talk that way to anyone and everyone, but that's a hold-over from the dialect and not used in polite/neutral conversations.

Out in the boonies, you might hear something like 「わぁ、何しよんのかえ？」（「おまえ、何しているのか？」）

bizarrojosh Wrote:You add さん at the end of her name? Isn't that kind of weird as she's your wife? That would be sort of like calling her Mrs. "Name." Plus she's in the same family so there's no need to distance yourself from her like that right?

San isn't like Mr./Mrs is in English. People use san all the time for friends, coworkers, family, anything really. Anyone that is the same level or above you can easily get san without it being at all strange. My husband, his mom and younger sister all call me chan. His dad calls me san. And his older sister and her husband just call me by my name (though that's more because I'm a foreigner than due to our relationship but that's another area of discussion). My husband calls his sister's husband kussan (his name is Kusano) but he calls my husband Takahirokun. My in-laws call my older sister-in-law's husband Kusanosan but call my younger sister-in-laws husband Suzukikun. My husband calls his older sister onechan and she just calls him Taka. He calls his younger sister Akkochan (her name is Akiko) and she calls him onichan. So, a lot of it is just personal preference and feeling too.

Guys can pretty much call their girlfriends whatever they want. きみ sounds old fashioned and silly - I use きみら and きみたち to address my JHS students. おまえ is great for emphasis among guy friends - it's not as rough as it's made out to be. You can use it the same way with a girl too - you don't have to say it all the time, but it can be used for emphasis or comic effect.

あなた is ultra cold. Suuuuper cold.

So somebody did a poll on how people refer to their partners (Japanese, translated), including the 'what would you like to be called' question... 呼び捨て seems to be pretty popular. Allegedly おい・ねぇなど is more commonly used than あなた :-)

Actually I've been meaning to ask. Usually I'm very careful in memorizing someones name after calling them because I've grown so accustomed to calling someone by their name, (it just makes sense to do so in my head).

But whenever I forget someones name I don't know what to do, in English I can easily get away with it, sometimes I get away with it in Japanese but still, I mess up sometimes and get trapped into a sentence that requires a name 例えば：「ブラブラブラ」さんの「ブラブラブラ」- Aijin what do I do?

liosama Wrote:But whenever I forget someones name I don't know what to do, in English I can easily get away with it, sometimes I get away with it in Japanese but still, I mess up sometimes and get trapped into a sentence that requires a name 例えば：「ブラブラブラ」さんの「ブラブラブラ」- Aijin what do I do?

Seppuku

あなた is not cold, like everything else it depends on the circumstances. I once had a coworker after me who started calling me あなた around the same time she started telling me about how she sleeps nude.

For the record me and my gf just use 呼び捨て. I'd probably be pleased if she started calling me anata if I married her, but I'm a fan of gender differentiation in language.

Aijin Wrote:Moral of the story: anime isn't real life.

Well, that's true but that's not really the problem. In many cases, anime have perfectly correct language for the situation depicted. The problem is that what is correct in one context can be incorrect, rude, weird or overly polite in another context. If you repeat what you hear in anime without understanding that context, you'll get into trouble. But if you pay attention to what language is used in different situations they are a great learning resource.

(Yes, there also a few anime that have silly language on purpose but you can usually tell the difference easily.)

The majority of anime that I've seen has weird language on purpose. Professors sound really professory. Old people sound really old. Bosses sound really bossy. Cute girls sound really cutesy. Women sound really feminine. Rich people sound like snobs. Smart people sound 偉そう. etc A large deal of characterization is done through speech patterns instead of plot.

It's not just about weird moe anime where someone adds にゃ〜〜〜 to the end of every sentence.

Hmm,

Not to turn this into an anime thread, but were there any slice of life or even more fantastical based anime that had more natural speech? For example, would 時をかける少女 be considered more grounded than the average anime?

One reason I ask is I did subs2srs of 秒速５センチメートル and didn't notice the listening benefit I got from the four previous shows I did (granted, there was A LOT of monologue in that movie).

Aijin Wrote:Moral of the story: anime isn't real life.

I think this was in reply to my comment about using お前 with my wife after seeing it used on show between a couple that were intimate. Oddly enough, that wasn't from an anime, but a drama called Last Christmas.

However, based off a recent "What Japanese Thinks" poll about how lovers refer and like to refer to each other http://whatjapanthinks.com/2010/01/13/ho...-partners/ one's best bet is use just a regular name with or without ちゃん or くん added.

Nukemarine you beat me to it, I was just getting ready to post this link. Bah.

No idea how accurate these surveys ever are, though. (Generally speaking, as I often post links to that site.)

You'll notice that 君 isn't listed as a primary word for 'you' before the 'etc'. (In terms of variations discussed in the thread, it's "お前、あなたなど".

nest0r Wrote:Nukemarine you beat me to it, I was just getting ready to post this link. Bah.

Oh, go on -- then we'll have three copies of it :-)

pm215 Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:Nukemarine you beat me to it, I was just getting ready to post this link. Bah.

Oh, go on -- then we'll have three copies of it :-)

Oh, haha. Damn, I'm way off my game lately.

IceCream Wrote:EDIT: if you saw someone in the street with their shoelace untied, you wouldn't need to say "you". You could say something like, すみませんが 紐は解けます.　(Don't quote me on that.) Anyway, the person will understand that it's their lace you're talking about by the fact that you're talking to them.

I actually got stopped in the street once by an おばあちゃん　and she just pointed at my shoes and said "ヒモ！ヒモ！” it was kinda funny.

Anyways while over there...

I got called ブライアン君　by most of my teachers the International exchange office people and the manager of the int'l dorm when he was in a good mood. otherwise he called me きみ
By the way, I asked about きみ once and the girl I was talking to said that it carries the nuance of you not knowing/forgot/don't care about the person's name and so that's why she didn't like it. I was in college so I heard mostly おれ・おまえ　amongst friends. And thats what I used with my guy friends. as for other people girls-especially if I was older-i would attach their first name plus ちゃん　guys i would just use their first names, i was a 外人留学生　so it didn't matter much that I didn't attach さん、くん　to everyones names (the students anyways) I was pretty good about the さん thing otherwise.

Oh yeah sometimes when I'd do something for one of my friends, pick up a drink for them or something, I'd get the slightly sarcastic ブライアンさま .

One thing was interesting, I could usually tell how comfortable certain Japanese were around foreigners by what they gave me when I asked for their name. Usually it was something along the lines of "My name yoshihiro, call me yoshi" something along those lines then they were comfortable. In the middle would be "Please call me akihiro" and then every once in a while i'd get "佐藤です” which usually wasn't a good omen for us being friends.

Anyways moral of the story--use names, the more intimate the more nickname-like it gets so:
鈴木　太郎（男子）－－＞　鈴木さんーー＞太郎さん・くん・ちゃんーー＞たっちゃん・おまえ
佐藤　恵美(女子）－－＞　佐藤さんーー＞恵美さん・ちゃんーー＞えっちゃん・あなた・きみ・おまえ
More formal --> less formal

What is あいつ? It hasn't been mentioned once in this thread. In an anime I like, にゃんこい！, various characters, both male and female, use it.

jcdietz03 Wrote:What is あいつ? It hasn't been mentioned once in this thread. In an anime I like, にゃんこい！, various characters, both male and female, use it.

Depending on the age difference or relationship it can mean "that twerp" or "that bastard". It's usually used to refer to someone in the third person in a concerned, annoyed, or whiney manner.

I for one just got into he habit of forming sentences that don't use I or you.

A good habit one can develop that is beneficial to learning Japanese is to practice omitting pronouns from a sentence.

jcdietz03 Wrote:What is あいつ?

Contraction of あの奴. My favorite translation of 奴 into English is "homie." It suggests either a character who is speaking loosely (i.e. without regard for politeness) or familiarity or contempt for the person referenced.

Other forms are そいつ、こいつ、どいつ.

彼奴　（あいつ）
其奴　（そいつ）
此奴　（こいつ）

きみ is very often used in love songs, so it's easy to get the impression that its an affectionate way to refer to someone. However, songs are usually about nobody in particular which is why they use more pronouns and it's fine, but when talking to your partner it is going to sound distant and cold - like you don't know their name.