I'm enrolled in Japanese at my university, and we recently had a review of personal pronouns. The professor encourage us to understand and practice casual speech, and as part of that, to try finding personal pronouns that we feel comfortable with in…
Are first, second, and third person nominals in Japanese used in the same way as in English? What should English speakers keep in mind when considering the three persons in Japanese?
Particularly for the second person, English you is used to…
In a conversation, when the speaker wants to refer to something that has been said, should he use 「その/それ」or「あの/あれ」or「この/これ」?
Example 1
先週怖い新聞記事を見た。その/あの/この記事ではある男が人を傷つけて逃げたということが述べられていた。その/あの/この犯人はまだ見つかっていないようだ。
Example…
How should one address readers or viewers in a published work?
For example, it is common in English language articles and videos these days to end by asking the viewer to share their opinion in a reply or comment.
Ex. "What do you think - do you…
I want to write a small dialogue.
How do I say "the other person says/answers etc."?
Then, one said...and the other replied...
When names are available I usually use those to indicate who says what, but when there are no names available, what do…
In a Shimajiro educational book I saw a line similar to this:
___ちゃんが知ってる乗り物は何ですか?
(the actual one had less Kanji but you get the point)
The question is why was ちゃん used here as a generic term. I thought ちゃん was used more for girls and くん for…
What is the best way to formulate a natural equivalent in Japanese?
From my experience, the most common way seems to be contextual inference. Pronoun dropping is obviously super common, but whether or not that is a way to do doesn't interest me;…
Which pronoun should I use as a teacher when I address my students?
For instance, in this sentence "Please submit your essay on Monday"
As far as I know, あなたたち sounds rude
I thought that 誰 meant 'who', such as in:
彼は誰ですか。'Who is he?'
Then, why in this sentence it is 誰か ('someone') which is used and not 誰?
彼女が誰か知っていますか。'Do you know who she is ?'
I want to know the difference among all the ways of saying I, both men and women. I know there are 私、僕 and 俺 for men; 私、あたし and うち for women; and also for elder people I've heard わしゅ. I'm not sure what's the diference of all these forms and I know…