Japanese Pronouns That You Need to Know

 

Every time we speak, we would always use pronouns in our sentences. Japanese of course also has pronouns but used slightly differently. In Japanese there are a lot of pronouns, mostly there are a lot of them because of the level of politeness. There are also some archaic or rarely used pronouns that add the number of pronouns in Japanese. In this post, we will talk about the pronouns that you need to know which you may encounter in real life.

First-Person Pronouns

The first kind of pronouns we will talk about is the first person pronoun. In this post we will discuss three of them which are used the most in daily life. Also, because Japanese is a pro-drop language, the first person pronouns can be omitted from a sentence.

Watashi/私

The first one you need to know is the pronouns watashi. Watashi is one of the polite pronouns in Japanese. This pronoun is used when you are talking to a stranger, people older than you, and also your senior. This pronoun is also used as a feminine casual pronoun.

Boku/僕

Next, we have Boku. Boku is one of the casual pronouns in Japanese and is a masculine one. Because it is a masculine pronoun, it is usually only used by male. In animations and comics, Boku is also used by tomboy to make them sound more masculine.

Ore/俺

Lastly we have the pronoun Ore. Ore is also one of the casual pronouns in Japanese. However, Ore is the most impolite and should be avoided if you are not talking with your friends.

Second-Person Pronoun

For the second-person pronoun, we will discuss three of them. The second-person pronoun can also be omitted just like the first-person pronouns. Important thing that you need to know is that referring to somebody with their names/surnames+honorifics, position, social role, family role, or their occupation role is much more preferable. Pretty much if possible, just avoid using the second-person pronouns.

Anata/貴方

The first one you need to know is Anata. This pronoun is the polite pronoun for the second person pronoun. Because it is a polite pronoun, it is usually used in polite sentences like when you are talking to a stranger for example. However, In polite sentences, it is better to just use surnames+honorifics instead of using pronouns.

Kimi/君

Next we have Kimi. This pronoun is the casual one so you can use it in casual conversation. But usually in casual conversation, the second person pronoun is still avoided. If you are close enough with the person you are talking to, you can just use their given name instead.

Omae/お前

Lastly we have Omae. This pronoun is one of the impolite pronouns in Japanese. In polite situations, you should avoid this pronoun at all costs. You should only use this pronoun when you are with close friends.

Third-Person Pronouns

The last one we will discuss is the third-person pronouns. Just like the second-person pronouns, referring to somebody with their names/surnames+honorifics, position, social role, family role, or their occupation role is much more preferable. There are basically two third-person pronouns that you need to know.

Kare/彼

Kare is the masculine third-person pronoun. As a masculine pronouns it is used to refer a male person.

Kanojo/彼女

Kanojo is the feminine counterpart of Kare. As a feminine pronoun it is used to refer to a female.

Making The Pronouns Plural

In our discussion so far, you probably noticed that I didn't really mention any plural pronouns. That is because in Japanese, to make a pronoun plural, you just need to add a plural ending for pronoun. There are several plural ending for a pronoun but you can just use -tachi/達 as it is the most neutral one and can be used in basically all pronouns. For the plural version of Kare and Kanojo, the ending -ra/ら/等 is the one that is usually used. And if the group is a mix of male and female, karera is used. To see the example sentences of how the pronouns are used, you can check the online dictionary Jisho.org anytime you want. If you have not checked the website yet, you should try checking it now! 

Well, that is all for our discussion on this topic. The ones I mentioned are the useful and most used ones so of course there are still a lot of them that I haven't mentioned. The other ones can be found at the higher level of Japanese learning. Thank you for reading this post.

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