How Not Using Japanese Pronouns Makes Your Japanese Better

By Philip Rozek

Japanese pronouns are just plain confusing. There are polite pronouns, rude pronouns, and everything in between.

The toughest thing of all, though, is that a good Japanese speaker should use as few pronouns as possible. In many cases, you don’t mention any pronouns at all. You usually figure out who a sentence is about just by the context.

But you still need to know the right Japanese pronouns to use. Here are the basic ones you need to know. If you get these, you’ll be covered 95% of the time:

• Watashi—This is the most common way to say “I” or “me”. It is polite, and you can pretty much always use it. This is a unisex term
• Watashi-tachi—Generally, if you see “tachi” at the end of a pronoun, it means that it’s a plural. So in this case, watashi-tachi means “we”.
• Boku—Means the same as watashi. The only difference is that boku is strictly used by males, and is somewhat informal. Don’t use this one if you are meeting the Emperor.
• Boku-tachi—Yep, you guessed it. Boku-tachi is a male, slightly informal way of saying “we”.
• Anata—Means “you”. This is a really tricky term, but the big rule here is NOT to use it when speaking to someone who is your senior, teacher, boss…you get the idea. As a rule of thumb, substitute “you” with someone’s last name (with –san) or their title.
• Kare—“He”. This is one of those terms you should use sparingly, because the situation usually doesn’t require you to clarify “he” versus “she”. Be careful, though—in many contexts, this can also mean “boyfriend”.
• Kanojo—“She”. No need to use this one too much, either. As you probably picked up, this can also mean “girlfriend”.
• Kare-ra—Means “they”, referring to people only.
• Sore-ra—Also means “they”, but instead refers to inanimate objects.
• Minna-san—Means “everybody”, as a plural “you”. A good time to use this is when addressing several people. This is very polite.

That takes care of the big ones you need to know to be a decent Japanese speaker, but a huge part of Japanese pronouns is knowing what’s meant when no pronouns are used.

A general but extremely useful rule of thumb is that if someone is asking you a question, the question is probably about you, though the Japanese pronoun meaning “you” isn’t actually used.
The only really common exception to this is if the question is an invitation of some kind, like asking “shall we do such-and-such?”

Naturally, if someone is making a statement and NOT asking a question, the statement is probably about the speaker.

The only silver bullet for mastering all the difficulties of Japanese pronouns is lots of practice and lots of exposure. There are plenty of other pronouns to know, but these will get you off to a great start.

Philip Rozek offers you more tips and points out more pitfalls of Japanese pronouns at his full article: http://www.how-to-learn-japanese.com/japanese_pronouns.html You can also learn all about Japanese kanji pronunciation, Japanese keigo, and more. You can also pick from his full array of tips on how to learn Japanese