Interesting. I first read 「お袋」in おれいも and it was written pretty recently I think. But of course real life ≠ anime/manga. It kinda sounds like you're calling your mother an old bag. So I actually laughed out loud when I first read it.

Saiga wrote:

Interesting. I first read 「お袋」in おれいも and it was written pretty recently I think. But of course real life ≠ anime/manga. It kinda sounds like you're calling your mother an old bag. So I actually laughed out loud when I first read it.

「お袋」in おれいも = You mean, 俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない？　It's a good anime/manga.. One of my best, anyways. You'll laugh at that every episode. xD

JapaneseRuleOf7 wrote:

You should be extremely careful when using お前.  It's pretty offensive.  Just something for you motherf-----s to think about.

That's a pretty bad translation. I can think of more offensive terms than お前, but motherf**ker is up there at the top. There's no situation where you'd use motherf**ker in a back-and-forth in place of 'you', but I can hear お前 used like this on the train. Of course, you shouldn't use it in the wrong context, but that's not something that's unique to お前.

A funny story I was told the other day is that Chinese people like to try to use hanzi in Japanese business e-mails without bothering to check the Japanese meaning, resulting in unwitting Japanese clients being referred to as お前 and 貴様.

drdunlap wrote:

And as Arupan pointed out earlier, Kansai people do use 自分 to refer to other people but it doesn't strike me as the kind of way you talk to a partner.
自分、自分のこと自分自分ゆうてるけど、自分のこと自分てゆうのやめて自分・・

Also my super southern-Osaka soon-to-be-boss calls me 君 ._.

A girl I know from Osaka uses 自分 to refer to herself. I wasn't aware it could be used for other people too, but I guess the usual meaning works in a similar way. 君 is pretty standard boss-speak whether the 部下 is male or female. I don't like the sound of it for some reason.

I'm not entirely sure how 自分 came to be a thing that can be used for other people and I imagine most people don't either. :x But on a "here's how you know you're from Kansai" list I saw, this was at the top:
1.『ちょw、自分なんなん？w』は、自問自答ではない。

Javizy wrote:

君 is pretty standard boss-speak whether the 部下 is male or female. I don't like the sound of it for some reason.

Yeah. It sounds oddly endearing in this case because he also happens to be a friend of mine. Usually he calls me by my first name, though.

Edit: Fixed my English. Forgetting English. nnng.

Last edited by drdunlap (2013 May 07, 12:00 am)

Javizy wrote:

There's no situation where you'd use motherf**ker in a back-and-forth in place of 'you', but I can hear お前 used like this on the train.

Well, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this, although discussing English usage is a bit tangential to this discussion.  I'll just say that when I lived large cities in the U.S., this was common language among peers.  I guess your social groups were different than mine.  So depending on people and place, yes, the language differs, as it does in Japan.  Hence my admonition.

More to the point, however, is that, regardless of the exact words, bad language often connotes closeness, rather than offense.  Just be careful who you use it with.

And that's the word, お前.

Last edited by JapaneseRuleOf7 (2013 May 07, 7:33 am)

JapaneseRuleOf7 wrote:

Well, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this, although discussing English usage is a bit tangential to this discussion.  I'll just say that when I lived large cities in the U.S., this was common language among peers.  I guess your social groups were different than mine.  So depending on people and place, yes, the language differs, as it does in Japan.  Hence my admonition.

More to the point, however, is that, regardless of the exact words, bad language often connotes closeness, rather than offense.  Just be careful who you use it with.

And that's the word, お前.

I've used the word joking around with friends, but I'm struggling to imagine a conversation where it would pop up as much as お前 and not sound forced. The words just don't have the same function. I understand your point though, and I'm pretty much just being pedantic. What I'm trying to say is that お前 can be as natural and inoffensive as 'you' in the right context, but generally it is best avoided.

Motherf**ker makes me think of ビートたけし-style ツッコミ. I get away with that with my girlfriend sometimes「何っつってんだよ、バカ野郎？」.

Javizy wrote:

There's no situation where you'd use motherf**ker in a back-and-forth in place of 'you',

PS. Watch the first 30 seconds of this, and you'll see my frame of reference for this word, and why I'd compare it to お前.  Your usuage may differ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_3goBZ … e=youtu.be

Last edited by JapaneseRuleOf7 (2013 May 07, 4:57 pm)

drdunlap wrote:

I hear お前 and あんた a lot from the people I'm close to. I don't know if Osaka really is just as rough as everyone says it is (maybe I'm just used to it?) or if I'm just in a different crowd or what

Well, that's fair.  Thanks for the input.  Anybody else?

And I have to ask, where on earth do you work that you hear that kind of language?  I'll give you あんた, which is like "dude."  But お前？  Dude, really?

I live in Osaka and あんた is something like the Kansai version of お前. They are used more or less interchangeably. The people I talk to are from all walks of life from college professors to the average salaryman to the roughest being local pub and restaurant owners. But they're still running businesses in Japan so you wouldn't expect them to be "rude."

Maybe we can write it off as an Osaka thing but I imagine there are people all over the place using it regularly. My old roommate from college used it as well and he's an astrophysics doctorate from Fukuoka..


After searching real quick I got this online from a Kansai person concerning these pronouns:
名前がわかれば「○○さん」「○○ちゃん」「○○くん」と呼びます。
親しい間柄なら「アンタ」「お前」「オマン」「自分」とかかな。
「アンタ」とか「お前」って、標準語圏ではキツイ響きなんでしょうか？
「自分」って関西独特でしょうね。

So he seems to wonder if あんた and お前 seem extra rough outside of Kansai as well. Maybe it really is a Kansai thing and my roommate was just weird. Anyone living in Fukuoka or elsewhere in Kyushu to confirm?

yudantaiteki wrote:

When I was in Tochigi I heard middle school male friends call each other おまえ or おめー frequently, and also てめー too.  I don't have much experience with high school or college age males so I'm not sure what's current there or if there's some regional variation.

Yeah boys are all pretty rough at least through high school..
My college friends in Kobe also called each other/me お前 quite often.

JapaneseRuleOf7 wrote:

Just something for you motherf-----s to think about.

I laughed way too much at this! LOL

Some helpful discussion here, I've always found the various calling words (correct name?) to be interesting. Thanks.

@drdunlap: Interesting. I have a friend from Kansai and we use お前 all the time to refer to "you". When I used お前 in the same sense to someone I was equally 親しい (he was from Tokyo, though), he was really offended and went totally berserk. We haven't been talking ever since that and because of that lesson I really got careful with this word.

NightSky wrote:

But then I've only heard the latter really as an insult, calling each other that between friends would sound .... bizarre

It's actually fairly common, at least where I come from, haha.

Calling your friend something like "Motherfucker" is a friendly way is called a dysphemistic euphemism, which I've always thought was a cool phrase.  Since, after all, dysphemisms are the opposite of euphemisms.  On the other side of things, minced oaths like "Oh fudge!" are called euphemistic dysphemisms.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2013 May 08, 1:21 am)

Tzadeck wrote:

NightSky wrote:

But then I've only heard the latter really as an insult, calling each other that between friends would sound .... bizarre

It's actually fairly common, at least where I come from, haha.

Calling your friend something like "Motherfucker" is a friendly way is called a dysphemistic euphemism, which I've always thought was a cool phrase.  Since, after all, dysphemisms are the opposite of euphemisms.  On the other side of things, minced oaths like "Oh fudge!" are called euphemistic dysphemisms.

Yes, dysphemistic euphemism.. But it differs when a westernian elder hears m-f on some westernian friend groups comparable to some japanese elders hearing お前　from some japanese friend groups. I guess the impact to each of the elders will differ. So yes both are dysphemistic euphemism but the severity of the meaning differs from each other, I believe.