日本語会話: The Japanese Conversation Thread

[DELTAprime]

In Japanese culture it's generally considered rude to refer to people by their given names, thus in most typical contexts, it is considered more respectful and polite to refer to people by their surnames. In Australia we tend to reserve this level of deference for people in certain positions, such as clients, politicians, teachers, doctors etc., but in Japan this level of respect is affording to virtually everyone except for family members and close friends.

Japanese society is a vertical hierarchy and it is extremely important to show the correct level of respect, not only in the way that you address someone, but also in the way that you speak to someone. In English we have different registers that we use to increase or decrease our level of linguistic formality, but Japanese goes to a whole different level with different honorific forms of speech.
e.g.: Here are different ways of saying, "I eat sushi" in Japanese with varying levels of politeness.
* 寿司くう (sushi kuu) ←crude
* 寿司を食べる (sushi o taberu) ←casual
* 御寿司を食べる (osushi o taberu) ←honorific casual
* 御寿司を頂く (osushi o itadaku) ←casual humble
* 御寿司を召し上がる (osushi o meshiagaru) ←casual respectful
* 寿司を食べます (sushi o tabemasu) ←polite
* 御寿司を食べます (osushi o tabemasu) ←honorific polite
* 御寿司を食べられます (osushi o taberaremasu) ←formal
* 御寿司を頂きます (osushi o itadakimasu) ←formal humble
* 御寿司をお食べになります(osushi o otabeninarimasu) ←formal polite
* 御寿司を召し上がります (osushi o meshiagarimasu) ←polite respectful
* 御寿司を御召し上がりになります (osushi o omeshininarimasu) ←honorific polite respectful
* 御寿司を御召しになって頂きます (osushi o omeshininatte itadakimasu) ←honorific humble respectful

Placing "san" after someone's name can be used in both casual and polite forms, so it's actually not that honorific as some other name suffixes. Other honorific titles include:
+ ちゃん (chan) = used to address someone as a term of endearment. This is a variant of "san" only with the "s" replaced with "ch" to mimic Japanese baby talk. e.g. 赤ちゃん (akachan) = baby
+ 君 (kun) = used to address subordinates or to boys or to male friends. Colloquially used to address close female friends (it's less diminutive than "chan"). e.g. in Dragonball, Gokuu is often called 孫君 (Son-kun) by his friends.
+ 様 (sama) = Lord/lady. e.g. お客様 (okyaku-sama) = Lord/lady customer, 神様 (kami-sama) = Lord God etc.
+ 先輩 (senpai) = used to refer to or address a senior colleague or student (if you're a school student). Notice me.
+ 先生 (sensei) = master. Used to refer to or address authority figures such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, head chefs etc., as well as anyone who is accomplished in their field such as acclaimed writers, musicians, artists etc.
+ 博士 (hakase) = doctor, as in a professor and/or person who's been awarded a PhD. e.g. ホーキング博士 (hookingu-hakase) = Dr. Hawking
+ 氏 (shi) = used in very formal speech or when writing to someone you don't know very well, like when addressing people on the internet. e.g. Δプライム氏 (Δpuraimu-shi) = DELTAprime
+ 殿 (tono) = same meaning as "sama," although not quite as honorific. Similar to saying, "Milord" or "Milady." e.g. 薫殿 (Kaoru-dono) = "Milady Kaoru"
+ 閣下 (kakka) = Your Excellency (yes, I know that every Italian speaker is now rofling at this )
etc. etc. etc.

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P.S.: It took me a couple of minutes to work out what the hell you meant by "devs."

Thanks Gok. Maybe I should avoid taking a trip to Japan ever, I hate being called Mr Kearney and Kearney-san sounds even more formal to me.

[GoktimusPrime]

(French people are rofling pretty hard at the last one too)

Meerrr--credi!

Thanks Gok. Maybe I should avoid taking a trip to Japan ever, I hate being called Mr Kearney and Kearney-san sounds even more formal to me.

Or you could just learn to say 「デルタと呼んでください」("Please call me Delta.")
But yeah, by default they will address you buy surname unless you say otherwise, but that's the same with being in any foreign culture; people will go with the cultural default unless you say otherwise.

And at least Japan is reasonably consistent in that regard. In Australia we have some people who insist on being called by their surname while others prefer to be called by their given name, which is why people in customer care will often say, "Do you mind if I call you <given.name>?" before proceeding with the service. I've often heard Japanese people talk about how they find this lack of consistency confusing as they don't want to offend or upset anyone. I often just tell them to directly ask any new person that they meet as to how they prefer to be addressed, but Japanese people are generally uncomfortable with being so direct and forward (as it's considered rude), so it's not easy for them. Japanese people will always default to being too polite rather than not polite enough, as you're less likely to offend someone by being too polite.

e.g. If I walked into a doctor's office, and let's say his name is John Smith. If I addressed him as "Dr. Smith," he might say, "Please, just call me John," and then I'd just call him "John" from then on. But if I call him "John" straight off the cuff and he then goes, "That's Dr. Smith," then I've just offended him and there are awkward feelings all round.

This scene from Star Wars A New Hope demonstrates this kind of social faux pas:
"Well, if there's a bright centre to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."
"I see, sir."
"Uh, you can call me Luke."
"I see, sir Luke."
(laughing) "Just Luke."

[DELTAprime]

This scene from Star Wars A New Hope demonstrates this kind of social faux pas:
"Well, if there's a bright centre to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."
"I see, sir."
"Uh, you can call me Luke."
"I see, sir Luke."
(laughing) "Just Luke."

I need to watch A New Hope again, I was thinking that was an Alec Guinness line for a moment, or did he prefer Sir Alec Guinness?

[GoktimusPrime]

I don't know about knighthoods, but I know that when you get awarded your PhD then by law you have to be addressed as "Doctor" in any legal setting. At my previous school I had a colleague who has a PhD in Chemistry -- she's very humble about it and doesn't normally tell people about it and never asks anyone to call her "Dr.", but it just came up in conversation one day. She told me that all legal documents that are mailed to her such as bills, address her as "Dr." because that's a legal requirement. But that's pretty much the only time she gets called Doctor. Likewise in court when she was getting divorced -- the court had to address her as "Doctor [surname]." If anyone calls her "Doctor" in any normal situations, she'll tell you to shut up and stop calling her that. She only uses the title when she has to, by law, otherwise she never does. But I've also met another teacher with a PhD who insists on being addressed as "Doctor," especially by students. Incidentally the first teacher teaches at a disadvantaged public school while the latter teaches at a very privileged private school (where teachers actually wear academic gowns like at Hogwarts ).

On the opposite end of the scale, every Karate instructor I've met demand to be addressed as "Sensei," even though a lot of them are just downright incompetent as teachers. (-_-) When I did Karate I refused to address my instructors as "Sensei" because - especially as a teacher myself - I don't believe in just frivolously throwing this title around, especially if you can't bloody teach. I was never rude to them per se, but for example, if my instructor's name was John Smith, I just called him John, and not "Sensei-John." And even if I were to address him as Sensei, I would never address him as "Sensei-John" because that makes no sense. As an honorific title, Sensei can only be used with surnames, not given names. Also, Japanese honorific titles always come after the name, never before. This is why Mr. Miyagi always said, "Daniel-san" and never "San-Daniel." Saying "Sensei John" is the equivalent of saying "John Mister" in English. It just looks stupid. Either call him "Mr. Smith," or "Smith-Sensei" or just "John"! I went for the latter option.

[GoktimusPrime]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ
^Interesting social experiment where 3 non-Japanese people (1 Asian, 1 black, 1 white) walked around and spoke with Japanese people to see if they would treat them the same as anyone else in Japan and respond in Japanese, or if they would attempt to mix with English or use English. The majority of respondents treated them the same as anyone else and exclusively spoke to them in Japanese.

In my personal observation, I find that one of the challenges for Anglophones in learning Japanese (or any other foreign language) is that a lot of people in other countries want to learn and/or practise English, and in countries like Japan, people are often more than willing to try and speak English with you (or at least mix some English with Japanese) to try and be helpful. But of course, it's not helpful because it hinders your ability to learn Japanese! But this little social experiment demonstrates that if foreigners are willing to take the initiative and speak in Japanese to Japanese people, then they will respond in kind. Where respondents mixed or used English it was often because the foreigner (the black girl) is speaking Japanese with a notable accent or she outright admits that she doesn't fully understand what is being said or shown to her (in her defence the video does explain that she is still a learner of Japanese whereas the other two are already fluent speakers; and the way that she tells off one guy for touching her hair was actually really good ).

So yeah, so long as you actually take the initiative to engage with Japanese people in Japanese, then Japanese people will respond in kind. And needless to say that your ability to learn Japanese will then increase exponentially. Anyone who is living in Japan (or has lived or will be going) will have the super added bonus advantage of being surrounded by native speakers and be able to do this on a daily basis. Those of us living outside of Japan obviously have more limited options, but we gotta take any opportunity where we can find it. And it's interesting what topics turn up... I managed to have a conversation with a Japanese friend recently and we talked about IVF in Japanese -- I learnt quite a lot of things about IVF (and fertility in general) that I never knew before.

P.S.: As I've probably mentioned before, whenever Japanese people speak to me in English, I just reply in Japanese.

[GoktimusPrime]

Tokyo 2020 promotion during the closing ceremony

[TAAUBlaster]

From this post in the Transformers Questions thread with the MP Cheetor translation request
http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showpo...postcount=8865

Recently I have been using scans like this to try and help me study kanji rather than selectable text (so I can't take the lazy way out and just copy/paste them into a translator ) I use a website to search for each kanji by their radicals which is also helping me to learn how each kanji is made up - and makes it a little easier for me to recognise them (I know - its a strange way to do it, but it works for me. )

Anyway my question is, What are the two kanji after ”ボディ”　at the start of the second line of text? I couldn't for the life of me find them the way I usually do (and I was probably mistaking the radicals when searching. )