Nouns and Pronouns

There’s not much to say in the way of nouns. Unlike other languages, Japanese doesn’t have plurals, doesn’t have the equivalent of ‘a’, doesn’t require you to memorize genders, doesn’t really have anything difficult in the noun field. Therefore, this section will be devoted to pronouns, forms of address, some notes on sentence construction.

Pronouns

There are no concepts of subjective, objective or reflective pronouns. Therefore I, me, and myself are all the same word. And possessives are dead simple. We’ll talk about that in a moment. Don’t you just love this language? On the other hand, there are varying levels of politeness, and some pronouns are strictly guy-only. Male usage is indicated with ‘M’ and female usage is indicated with ‘F’.

Most people who watch anime have an idea of the difference in levels between the pronouns. And how the semes use ‘ore’ and the ukes use ‘boku’. Only not always. For kicks, I’ve provided a little chart on who uses what in FF7, Saiyuki and a few other fandoms. Somewhat incomplete because I don’t always pay attention.

English	Japanese	Usage	Used by:
Me	私 わたし　/ わたくし Watashi	Used in formal situations (including, by the way, Japanese lessons). Can also be pronounced ‘watakushi’ in extremely formal situations. M: Formal. F: All the time	Sephiroth (AC) Rufus Tseng Sanzo when talking to the Talking Heads.
	僕 ぼく Boku	Usually used in conjunction with kimi. M: Informal, humble. F: Not used	Kadaj Hakkai (Sai)
	俺 おれ Ore	Usually used in conjunction with omae. M: Very informal, rather less humble than boku F: Not used	Sephiroth (LO) Zack Reno Cloud Barret Kanzeon Goku Sanzo Gojyo
	俺さま Ore-sama	Complete and utter self-elevation.	Tokitou (WA) Atobe (PoT)
	家　うち　ウチ Uchi	Kansai-ben. (Kansai-ben being a dialect of the usual Kantou-ben which this guide written for)	Hazel (Sai)
You	Name-(honorific) (More on honorifics later)	Usually, one does not address the other party by a pronoun unless they’re familiar with each other. Moreover, if addressing a superior, one usually uses the other’s title.	e.g. Shachou – President Senpai – Senior Sensei – Teacher Oshou-sama – A high ranking priest
	貴方 あなた Anata	Used in formal situations Also used to address a loved one. M: Formal F: All the time	Hakkai to Sanzo?
	そなた Sonata	Extremely formal. Used by both M and F.	Talking heads to Sanzo. (Sai)
	アンタ あんた Anta	Informal. Opinions vary on how impolite this is. Personally, I think it’s on par with ‘kimi’ and a step above ‘omae’. M: Informal F: Informal	El to most people. Zangan to Zack (LO) Kadaj to Reno Rufus to Cloud Sanzo to innkeepers Sanzo to people in Yakumo arc. (Sai)
	君 きみ Kimi	Informal. Usually used by ‘boku’ characters. M: Informal. F: Not used.	Hakkai? Hojo to Tseng (LO)
	お前 おまえ おめえ Omae	Very informal, or with the slight suggestion that the subject is on a lower level or between guys. M: Very informal. F: Not used.	Zangan to Tifa (LO) Zack to Cloud (LO) Reno to Cloud Sephiroth to Zack (LO) Sephiroth to Cloud (AC) Cloud to Sephiroth Rufus to Cloud Sanzo to the others Gojyo Goku Kanzeon
	貴様　（きさま） Kisama　and テメエ（てめえ） Temee	Extremely rude, and on par with cussing the other out, and usually just before everyone comes to blows.	Sanzo. Quite a bit. Gojyo.
Him	Name-(honorific)	Same thing applies to third parties. One rarely uses the ‘him’ or ‘her’ pronoun.
	あの男（の人） あのおとこのひと Ano otoko (no hito)	Literally: That guy. (Formal)
	彼　かれ Kare	Informal. Technically means ‘boyfriend’, but can be used as ‘him’ as well.
Her	あの女（の人） あのおんなのひと Ano onna (no hito)	Literally: That girl. (Formal)
	彼女　かのじょ Kanojo	Informal. Technically means ‘girlfriend’ but can be used as ‘her’ as well.
Him/Her	あいつ Aitsu	‘That guy/girl’. Informal.
	やつ Yatsu	‘That guy/girl’. Informal, vulgar
	野郎　（やろう） Yarou	‘That rascal’. Informal, vulgar. More vulgar than yatsu, I believe.
We	私・僕・俺　　達 Watashi / Boku / Ore + tachi	Typical usage. To pluralize any group of people, just use ‘tachi’.
	我・我々 われ・われわれ Ware / ware-ware	Formal, and tends to be used in reference to royalty or an organization.	Rufus re Shinra Company / Turks and himself (AC) Shinra SOLDIER re team (LO) Talking heads re themselves (Sai)
Plurals	達 たち　tachi	Add ‘tachi’ behind any pronoun or noun to form a group. Formal, polite.	e.g. Watashi-tachi Ano otoko no hitotachi Kougaiji tachi (Kougaiji’s group) Tori tachi (The group of birds)
	ら ra	Add ‘ra’ behind any pronoun to form a group. Informal.	e.g. Anta ra Kare ra

Honorifics

Honorific	Usage	Examples
san	Standard honorific for Someone you don’t know well (colleagues, classmates, people you just met) Formal situations (class, meetings)	Everywhere.
sama	Royalty or equivalent thereof. There’s a tendency to abuse this in fandom, but in practice it really should be restricted to someone of extremely high rank.	Others to Sanzo Others to Hazel. Royalty. Rufus might count.
kun	Informal honorific for boys.
chan	Informal honorific for girls, or very young boys. May be used in relation to someone you’re attached to.
Titles	Name + title – standard formal, polite form of address when referring to someone in the third person.	See above for ‘You’ and Name-Honorific
None	Generally, you don’t use suffixes with people you know really well.

Possessives

How to say: So-and-so’s ….

Just say no.

[Noun] + no + [Noun 2] = Noun’s… [Noun 2]

「N」＋の

e.g.

Boku no sekai = My world.

Watashi no koto = My matters / business.

Sekai no tame = The world’s sake.

Omae no sei = Your fault.

Abe no Seimei = Seimei from the region Abe. (Abe’s Seimei)

Sentence Construction with nouns

This is technically skipping ahead of the game, but well, less to learn later.

A typical sentence looks like this:

[Subject] wa [object] desu.

e.g.

Namae wa El (Eru) desu.

名前はエルです。

My name is El.

Or

Watashi wa El (Eru) desu.

私はエルです。

I am El.

So far so good? Now, with the help of a dictionary, you can make ‘I am a camel’, ‘I am a boy’, and ‘I am a high ranking Buddhist with an attitude problem’—no wait, you can’t.

However, after going through all that fuss to learn the pronouns, I’m happy to announce that you will rarely need them.

One quirk of Japanese is that pronouns are hardly ever used (unless particular emphasis is needed), and the listener or reader is often left to assume what the speaker / writer is referring to. Usually, in the absence of a pronoun, the sentence refers to one’s self. It’s all about context, though, so it could just as easily refer to someone else or to a situation.

For example, one would typically not use the two examples given above. One would usually just say:

El desu. = I am El / My name is El.

For example, in Last Order, Tifa goes:

“Konakkata. Yakusoku shite kureta no ni.”

来なっかた。　約束して　くれた　のに

Literally: ’Didn’t come. Although there was a promise made for my benefit.’

(Kureru is an interesting verb which we’ll deal with another time. Suffice to say, it means that someone else gives something to you (I’m not using ‘receive’ for a reason here.) When tacked on to the end of another verb, it means that someone does that action for you, usually as a favour.)

Note the absolute absence of ‘you’s in that sentence. However, when translated into English it would be:

‘You didn’t come. Although you promised me you would…”

Like I said, it’s all a happy exercise in guesswork, sometimes. Tifa does say ‘Cloud’ after that, so you know she’s referring to Cloud. But it’s a prime example of how pronouns just don’t get used unless there’s a possibility of confusion or just need for particular emphasis.

For example: ‘For your sake’ makes absolutely no sense if you just say ‘tame’ (Sake.)

You would therefore say

‘Omae no tame ni’. (Lit: Your sake for)

Naru

Remember the ‘naru’ verb? (To become). It was introduced under the adjectives chapter.

To recap briefly, to say it becomes [adj]:

[i-adj] i + ku + naru

[na-adj] + ni + naru

For a noun, it’s

[Noun] + you ni + naru

「N」＋　ように　＋　成る

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Questions?