2.4. PRONOUNS: 79with examples:”This is fast.””That’s black.””That (over there)’s broken.””Which do you like?”Notice the periods after the English translations for the individual
; these have been added to make sure you understand that these
words are ”done.” They are replacement nouns, and cannot be used in
conjunction with a noun.
The rest of the common series are:
meaning
[noun] this kind of [noun]
[noun] that kind of [noun]
[noun] that kind of [noun] over there
[noun] which kind of [noun]Beginning students often confuse with the word
which
means ”what”, when thinking of dialogues such as: ”I bought a velour
pillow” - ”wow, what does that feel like?”. While the English dialogue uses
the word ”what”, the Japanese question would actually be ”which/what
kind of feeling does that have?”meaning
this direction/this honourable person.
that direction/that honourable person.
that direction/that honourable person over there.
which direction/which honourable person.This series can mean two things, depending on context. Since per-
sonal pronouns are avoided as much as possible in Japanese, it is consid-
ered polite to refer to someone by referring to the direction in which they
are located, relative to the speaker, similar to using the English indirect