304 CHAPTER 6. LANGUAGE PATTERNS
Second person pronoun - ”you”
- a version of ”you” that contains a slight element of looking down
on someone. You are technically placing yourself higher on the social
ladder when you use it. - a rough and almost rude way to say ”you”
- the distal, deferred way to say ”you”. Because it is very for-
mal, it can also be considered impolite outside of very formal seĴings.
Remember from the section that can also be used as
an intimately familiar personal pronoun. - the shortened version of , this is roughly the same as
using. - something to avoid. While means ”pecious” or ”honor”,
and is an honourable suffix, this word has made a half turn from
being used as a classicaly honorific pronoun to a modern dayac-
cusativepronoun, and is as close to a curse word without being one,
as one could possibly get. - another pronoun to avoid. While classically this pronoun meant
”you”, its meaning has shifted to an accusative ponoun instead, sim-
ilar to. - a classical personal pronoun meaning ”you”. You are most
likely to hear this pronoun used in samurai drama, rather than in
every day Japanese.
Third person pronoun - ”he/she”
- while a neutral ”he”, is a word that should be avoided simply
because it is considered bad practice to use personal pronouns. Be-
cause of this, using it at all is already slightlyderogativeto the person
you’re referring to if you know them by name. - when used as personal pronoun, has the same connotation as
, except for girls. However, in addition to being a personal pro-
noun it can also mean ”girlfriend” as a regular noun (with the noun
version of ’boyfriend’ being
).