kainzero Wrote:tbh, most of the people i've met that were like that have either grown out of it and found their own niche, or became more like a japanese otaku.

I fully admit that the first few years of my being an anime fan, I was REALLY annoying. Maybe not to the point that I was going out to the store in cosplay, but I remember talking to anyone that would listen about anime. Looking back, I feel bad for them that they had to put up with me.
I think personally I've found a balance that works for me. I'm definitely a nerd, I have a room full of DVDs, figures and manga to prove it. However, I try not to wear my nerdiness too much on my sleeve. Like I said, my friends know, and some of my friends have seen my room (showing my Japanese friends my nerd room however was VERY embarrassing. The whole time I kept saying "あたしの部屋は恥ずかしいい。　でもあたしのこと本当にお宅じゃない！”） However, I don't go up to people and automatically start talking about anime to them.
There's nothing wrong with having your hobby, or cosplaying at conventions or what have you. The key is to be a bit self aware, and maybe moderate yourself a little.
Oh, and for some reason, it seems like Japanese cons would have a lot more merchandise available. I'll take cool collectibles over kids running around with yaoi paddles any day.

kainzero Wrote:

quark Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I've never actually been to anime convention, my gut always told me to stay away from there but if it was in Japan, it would probably be another story. I wouldn't mind visiting it there.

actually i think anime conventions here are pretty cool, and i don't even watch anime anymore. with the right attitude you could meet a lot of people and everyone's really friendly because of the atmosphere... though some are confrontational, and some carry that annoying "greater-than-thou" attitude, whether it's the nerds that don't like you because you're not as nerdy as them, or the people who go to the convention and hate everyone and think it's beneath them.

i would actually be more scared of the japanese conventions. i feel like they're dirtier, haha.

lol haha. Well in terms of anime conventions, I know there is one in May on friday+whole weekend. When I think about myself and anime+manga+games. I do like them,read them,play jp games,etc but I've never ever dress up or cosplay(not my thing). The most I've done is read manga+jp books in public. Most of the time I've gotten read occasional stares and even a few conversations lol

When I think back to highschool, it probably started there. I joined an anime club(not really a club, they just viewed anime during fridays, after school). I only went a few times and eventually stopped(then it started again in college, second year). Then I stopped and came back(See a pattern?). Although now, it's more related to learning Japanese, I still watch anime(fun immersion) and probably won't stop for some time.

quark Wrote:I fully admit that the first few years of my being an anime fan, I was REALLY annoying. Maybe not to the point that I was going out to the store in cosplay, but I remember talking to anyone that would listen about anime. Looking back, I feel bad for them that they had to put up with me.
I think personally I've found a balance that works for me. I'm definitely a nerd, I have a room full of DVDs, figures and manga to prove it. However, I try not to wear my nerdiness too much on my sleeve. Like I said, my friends know, and some of my friends have seen my room (showing my Japanese friends my nerd room however was VERY embarrassing. The whole time I kept saying "あたしの部屋は恥ずかしいい。　でもあたしのこと本当にお宅じゃない！”） However, I don't go up to people and automatically start talking about anime to them.
There's nothing wrong with having your hobby, or cosplaying at conventions or what have you. The key is to be a bit self aware, and maybe moderate yourself a little.
Oh, and for some reason, it seems like Japanese cons would have a lot more merchandise available. I'll take cool collectibles over kids running around with yaoi paddles any day.

I hope you're a girl if you're using あたし, lol.

I certainly am a girl, and I only use あたし with friends. I'd love to use 僕 instead, but it would probably sound too weird.

quark Wrote:I certainly am a girl, and I only use あたし with friends. I'd love to use 僕 instead, but it would probably sound too weird.

I hear you. I'd use 僕 too if I wasn't female, why do guys only get the cooler ways of addressing one's self...

quark Wrote:I certainly am a girl, and I only use あたし with friends. I'd love to use 僕 instead, but it would probably sound too weird.

It might be best just to use わたし, haha. I've never actually met a Japanese girl who uses あたし. Then again, I've never lived near Tokyo, so it might be slightly more popular there--but I've been there 15 or 20 times, and I've still never heard it.

Where I live young cutesy girls would be more likely to refer to themselves as their own name (someone names 桃 might say 桃は行きたくない to mean 'I don't want to go'), or as うち. But, I realize うち is Kansai dialect, and even referring to yourself by your first name seems to be a bit more popular in Kansai.

Edit: Also, nowadays 僕 is becoming a popular way for young girls to refer to themselves, and it sounds very cute. But you might not be able to get away with it as non-native speakers, haha.

I was studying in the university library the other night (for jlpt) and one my Japanese friends who was working on one of the computers came over to say hey, so we were sitting talking about random nothing really, next thing there's 4-5 people neither of us knew circling around us.. (it was friday night, 8pm ish and the library was pretty empty, so this was especially odd)

the anime club..
so while I'm trying to study, i now had an increasing number of anime nuts swarming around my table in the library, asking me random questions, one girl happily told me she could read ん in hiragana..(want a cookie?) after taking one of my books off the desk and leafing through..
and yes.. random utterances of すげええ and かわいい were overheard. Although they decided すげええ　was too one piece-ish and best stick with すごい.

I elected not to take them up on their offer to join..
I have no problems with people having hobbies, shit i spent all weekend with my feet on my desk watching other people play starcraft..
Just don't come harass me with it unless I'm asking you to.

Ahh, so girls actually DO use 僕？ For some reason, I thought that was only in anime, and that real girls wouldn't ever call themselves 僕. I'm a bit of a tomboy, so 僕　seems to suit me better than あたし. Plus, 僕 is adorable. If it's okay with my friends, I might start using 僕 with them. I do realize as a non-native Japanese I have to be a bit more careful, so I will still use 私　with strangers or people I'm not close to.
Oh, and sorry for derailing this thread. But finding a pronoun to refer to yourself as is trickier than it might seem.

Gingerninja Wrote:I was studying in the university library the other night (for jlpt) and one my Japanese friends who was working on one of the computers came over to say hey, so we were sitting talking about random nothing really, next thing there's 4-5 people neither of us knew circling around us.. (it was friday night, 8pm ish and the library was pretty empty, so this was especially odd)

the anime club..
so while I'm trying to study, i now had an increasing number of anime nuts swarming around my table in the library, asking me random questions, one girl happily told me she could read ん in hiragana..(want a cookie?) after taking one of my books off the desk and leafing through..
and yes.. random utterances of すげええ and かわいい were overheard. Although they decided すげええ　was too one piece-ish and best stick with すごい.

I elected not to take them up on their offer to join..
I have no problems with people having hobbies, shit i spent all weekend with my feet on my desk watching other people play starcraft..
Just don't come harass me with it unless I'm asking you to.

haha, "I can read n in hirgana", You should have said "I know 2000 kanji, but you don't hear me bragging about it". That is what a real a-hole would say but I know where your coming from. From what I've learned from anime clubs is, there isn't much people who are serious about learning Japanese, nor do they become successful(not saying it in a bad way, but a good majority of people are like this).

Most of the Japanese Studies I do are at home, but now that I have a laptop. I can pretty much do it anywhere in school now. If it was me, I'd just use it as means of meeting more people but I've had the occasional dirty states on the bus+at school.
One time I heard this Japanese girl talking on her phone, inside the bus. I was thinking whether to talk but I decided might as well just listen in(not be a stalker or anything but I can't undo my listening skills in jp lol)

I was only in the library because it's usually fairly quiet.. and at that time on friday nights my dorm usually has dubstep coming from every other room..

I think most people probably listen in to conversations. I never have the balls to accidentally dive into random conversations that way however. I overheard a bunch of the exchange students speaking my first day back at Uni this semester, but we hadn't been introduced yet, and there was like 6 of them.. wasn't about to throw myself into that at random. Ofc I've met them all now and will happily speak to them all, they keep trying to speak English at me!! damn them.. it was easier to convince Japanese people to speak Japanese to me when I was the exchange student..

quark Wrote:Ahh, so girls actually DO use 僕？ For some reason, I thought that was only in anime, and that real girls wouldn't ever call themselves 僕. I'm a bit of a tomboy, so 僕　seems to suit me better than あたし. Plus, 僕 is adorable. If it's okay with my friends, I might start using 僕 with them. I do realize as a non-native Japanese I have to be a bit more careful, so I will still use 私　with strangers or people I'm not close to.
Oh, and sorry for derailing this thread. But finding a pronoun to refer to yourself as is trickier than it might seem.

Sounds fine. My impression of it is that if a girl uses 僕, she's most likely to use it when talking to close female friends. You might get some weird reactions, haha, but that's kind of fun.

Personally, the only one I find particularly adorable is うち, but I don't think you could get away with it as a non-native speaker outside of Kansai.

Tzadeck Wrote:Personally, the only one I find particularly adorable is うち, but I don't think you could get away with it as a non-native speaker outside of Kansai.

Yeah, heard it constantly in Osaka, but not with other Japanese people. My host families little daughter (Haruna) used to refer to herself as Haru-chan which was cute as hell, but she was only 6, so she can be let off for that. Did catch me by surprise the first time hearing someone refer to themselves in the 3rd person. A lot of teen girls still do, I haven't heard it much outside of younger girls (and once again, only Kansai area.. )

Gingerninja Wrote:Did catch me by surprise the first time hearing someone refer to themselves in the 3rd person. A lot of teen girls still do, I haven't heard it much outside of younger girls (and once again, only Kansai area.. )

Yeah, I kind of associate it with girls 15 and under. However, I know a girl who's 22 and still does it.

Actually, just thought of a really weird example of pronoun use! I was talking to her in my apartment. We'll call her 桃, though that's not her real name.

She wanted to sleep over, but I told her she had to sleep on the sofa (since I didn't want to sleep in the same bed with her). Anyway, she was trying to get me to let her use the one futon.

So she said 「桃は布団！」
I responded, 「だめ、僕は布団で寝るんだよ」
And ｓhe responded,　「嫌や。僕はソファ、桃は布団！」

In other words, she used the first person pronoun 僕 to refer to me in the third person.　　She was telling me to sleep on the sofa. It was the first time I heard that, and it confused me for a second, haha.

Also, note, normally I would let a girl take the futon and I would sleep on the couch. I was mad at her and didn't want her to stay over, haha. She lives right up the road from me so it was no hassle for her to go home.

ta12121 Wrote:haha, "I can read n in hirgana", You should have said "I know 2000 kanji, but you don't hear me bragging about it". That is what a real a-hole would say but I know where your coming from. From what I've learned from anime clubs is, there isn't much people who are serious about learning Japanese, nor do they become successful(not saying it in a bad way, but a good majority of people are like this).

If someone said "I know 2000 kanji" I would reply with "Well, my penis is longer and I have a Ferrari" or some other ridiculous statement because it becomes a sad bragging competition. yeah. lol.
I think a lot of people who watch anime and want to learn Japanese quickly realize that when they learn, the subtitles are pretty accurate and it doesn't really heighten their enjoyment. The only time I see people seriously, SERIOUSLY get into it is when their anime/otaku internet has no equivalent English translation and they really have the motivation.

I'm kinda over the whole "lol they only know かわいい and Brianちゃん and they think they know Japanese" angle though. It's kinda sad but then I realize that my goals are my own and they have their own goals too, better to focus on my own than to make fun of others.

Tzadeck Wrote:Where I live young cutesy girls would be more likely to refer to themselves as their own name (someone names 桃 might say 桃は行きたくない to mean 'I don't want to go')

Whenever I see that on variety shows I swear I want to slap that girl in the face.
Doubly so if she adds ちゃん、たん、or any other cutesy honorific to her own name. It's okay if other people do that to her name (especially since it's TV) or if she's a kid but when it's your own name and you're in high school it sounds so pretentious and fake cutesy.


I remember when my friends would use katakana words in English conversation for no reason, presumably because that was all the Japanese they knew. Annoying as hell!
"Yo, are you bringing your コンピューター to the LAN パーティー tomorrow?"

Gingerninja Wrote:I was studying in the university library the other night (for jlpt) and one my Japanese friends who was working on one of the computers came over to say hey, so we were sitting talking about random nothing really, next thing there's 4-5 people neither of us knew circling around us.. (it was friday night, 8pm ish and the library was pretty empty, so this was especially odd)

the anime club..
so while I'm trying to study, i now had an increasing number of anime nuts swarming around my table in the library, asking me random questions, one girl happily told me she could read ん in hiragana..(want a cookie?) after taking one of my books off the desk and leafing through..
and yes.. random utterances of すげええ and かわいい were overheard. Although they decided すげええ　was too one piece-ish and best stick with すごい.

I elected not to take them up on their offer to join..
I have no problems with people having hobbies, shit i spent all weekend with my feet on my desk watching other people play starcraft..
Just don't come harass me with it unless I'm asking you to.

Sometimes I like to pretend that people like that act that way just to get a reaction out of people like you, but sadly this is not the case - they actually are serious about the things coming out of their mouth.

It's just so easy to imagine them going away and being like "hahahaha we really messed with that guy". It's just sad that that isn't the case

Tzadeck Wrote:In other words, she used the first person pronoun 僕 to refer to me in the third person.　　She was telling me to sleep on the sofa. It was the first time I heard that, and it confused me for a second, haha.

僕 can be used to refer to little kids, in fact I think your friend might have been teasing you for using 僕 as it's kind of unnecessarily humble and can come across as childish or effeminate. I'd recommend you to use 俺 instead with your friends. As they say, Japanese doesn't have personal pronouns. The default is no pronoun. 僕, 私、うち etc don't actually mean I. Which ever word you use to refer to yourself or others will carry some implied assertion about relative status. If in doubt I think it's best to use 私 for yourself, and name+さん for others.

nadiatims Wrote:僕 can be used to refer to little kids, in fact I think your friend might have been teasing you for using 僕 as it's kind of unnecessarily humble and can come across as childish or effeminate. I'd recommend you to use 俺 instead with your friends. As they say, Japanese doesn't have personal pronouns. The default is no pronoun. 僕, 私、うち etc don't actually mean I. Which ever word you use to refer to yourself or others will carry some implied assertion about relative status. If in doubt I think it's best to use 私 for yourself, and name+さん for others.

You seem pretty confused. For guys in their early 20s using 僕 is completely appropriate when talking to friends (and anyway, how the hell can a masculine first person pronoun sound 'effeminate?'). Both male and female Japanese friends have advised me that 僕 is completely appropriate for my age and personality type. When I get closer to my late 20s it will start to get more inappropriate. In a business situation I would use わたし. I would feel pretty silly using 俺 the majority of the time, and I think the people around me would also find it pretty silly、just from my personality. (I do use it in some situations, but it's pretty rare)

Using a pronoun here was also completely appropriate, since I was contrasting where I was sleeping with where she was sleeping. (If I said 'I'm sleeping in this bed', I wouldn't use a pronoun in Japanese. But if I say 'I'm sleeping in the bed, and you're sleeping on the sofa' I would, since it would be appropriate to use a first person pronoun and a contrastive は)

Also, no she wasn't teasing me, which was pretty obvious from her tone.

I knew this guy who's in his late 30s and refered to himself as boku, so you guys should be fine. :p
Girls who say boku still make me cringe though. Anime characters should stay where they belong, on TV.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:I knew this guy who's in his late 30s and refered to himself as boku, so you guys should be fine. :p

Yeah, it definitely happens. But, there is a tendency for a lot of guys to stop using it by the time they're 20, so nadiatims is not completely off base. It's just that, there are a lot of guys who continue to use it into their 20s. As they get older and older it gets rarer and rarer. For guys in their early 20s it's still fairly common.

Tzadeck Wrote:It might be best just to use わたし, haha. I've never actually met a Japanese girl who uses あたし. Then again, I've never lived near Tokyo, so it might be slightly more popular there--but I've been there 15 or 20 times, and I've still never heard it.

I've heard many Japanese women use あたし from when I lived in Kansai and now closer to Tokyo but still 2 hours away by the bullet trains. Age ranges from 20 to 40. Guess it depends on who you hang out with.

Edit: I feel I must investigate this issue by living all over Japan and only hanging out with Japanese women

ta12121 Wrote:I've never actually been to anime convention, my gut always told me to stay away from there but if it was in Japan, it would probably be another story. I wouldn't mind visiting it there. Then again, I'm not the type of person to dress up and discuss anime/manga like crazy.

Japan doesn't really have anything like the anime conventions in the states. State conventions tend to have guest speakers and what not, as well as contests. The closet thing to anime cons in Japan are 同人誌 markets and possibly some of the smaller cosplay events.

---

On the topic of people cringing at weeaboos using Japanese. I want to point out that Japanese among this crowd of people tends to have VERY similar characteristics as the adults that go to eikaiwa's in Japan. Its a passing hobby that probably won't ever go anywhere far. They want to learn a few catch phrases here or there and maybe learn enough Japanese/English so that when they visit another country they can get around. Most lack the motivation or are too busy to ever hope to progress it to any depth that will give fluency.

Quote:Both male and female Japanese friends have advised me that 僕 is completely appropriate for my age and personality type.

Lookup 私　僕　俺 in Google, and in the first result you'll find:

Quote:いい年をして親に対して「僕」を使うのは、甘えている印象を与えるのだろうと思います（もっといえば、マザコンの印象）。

Which basically means that at that age if you use "僕" (in this case it was when talking to the OP's girlfriend's parents on the phone) you'll sound as your mom's little child. And the OP was 23.

Then, the Japanese have so many words to refer to "I", that it's no wonder opinions about their use are divided even amongst native speakers. In the second result in Google you'll get this:

Quote:「僕(ぼく)」はしもべや下男（雑用人）を意味するので、目上に対してへりくだった言い方です。
「俺(おれ)」は「己(おのれ)」を略したもので、男女目下目上共用の一人称です。現代は同輩以下に使います。
「私(わたし)」は「私(わたくし)」を砕いた言い方で、公の席で自分自身のみを指す言い方です。

「我(われ・あれ)」は自分自身を誇張する一人称。
「某(それがし)」は武家の者がへりくだった言い方。
「我輩(わがはい・あがはい)」は自分の主張をする一人称。
「手前(てまえ)」は自分が受ける立場の時に使う言い方。
「乃公(だいこう)」は自分が他人よりも上であることを主張する際の言い方。
「拙者(せっしゃ)」は武士が謙虚であることを伝える為の言い方。
「此方(こちら)」は自分の言い分や主張をする際の言い方。

一人称の数の多さは世界中の言語の中で日本語が最も多いと言われています。

Quote::O 驚く自分のことを言う言葉ってこんなにあって意味もきちんとあるのですね。
勉強になりました。ありがとうございました。
("I had no idea there are so many words to refer to yourself, and that they all have different nuances. I learnt a lot from your post".)

And that is an answer from a native speaker.

That secondary list is still missing some "I"s. うち　and 自分 in particular. Kansai people tend to use 自分 quite a bit.

Sebastian Wrote:Lookup 私　僕　俺 in Google, and in the first result you'll find:

Quote:いい年をして親に対して「僕」を使うのは、甘えている印象を与えるのだろうと思います（もっといえば、マザコンの印象）。

Yes, because the first match for any given Google search is always perfect and incontrovertible.

Besides, you've completely misread the content on that page, including the part you quoted. That question and answer apply only to the very specific case of a person who usually uses 俺 switching to 僕 when talking to his parents. You've cherry picked bits from that and assumed that it applies across all possible situations.

Tzadeck Wrote:You seem pretty confused. For guys in their early 20s using 僕 is completely appropriate when talking to friends (and anyway, how the hell can a masculine first person pronoun sound 'effeminate?'). Both male and female Japanese friends have advised me that 僕 is completely appropriate for my age and personality type.

Maybe 'effeminate' was the wrong word. I guess I meant slightly wimpy, or non-manly. I think among guys, no one will care too much if you're saying 僕 or 俺. 僕 may be slightly less confrontational and fitting for quiet or well-natured people, and more 'alpha'ish guys may use 俺 more. But among women, there are people who for example don't want their boyfriend to refer to themselves as 僕. I think it is a bit of a 人それぞれ thing and probably differs by region/upbringing etc. I still think your friend was probably friendlily poking fun of you slightly though.