Of course you can use it, but I use it when i want to use it.
I just mean, don’t use at the beginning of every sentence. Like, even if I just walk up to some random shop assistant with a question I wont begin the sentence with 私は. Maybe I’m just rude as hell…
If that’s what you mean, it doesn’t matter which pronoun it is really.
I always thought it was weird that all the beginner’s Japanese resources I’ve seen use あなた pretty liberally, and rarely mention until later on that it’s not something you should actually do, if they mention it at all. It’s like they’re worried learners just won’t be able to handle not having a word for ‘you’.
I’ve heard 俺 used by ladies in rural areas as well to accentuate a rougher tone (with their homies of course). Could be a slang or dialect thing as well.
Oh, very indeed. Because English is so heavy with pronouns, Japanese resources aimed at English speakers often go heavy on the pronouns too, but that’s a bad habit to learn…
I use 俺 at home and 私 at work.
All the other stuff when I joke around.
I agree with this one. Typical foreigners to overuse 私は with a nice foreign accent.
僕 or 俺 somehow sounds better on a foreigner until you get a hang of pronunciation.
My boss always use this when explaining about our business and what we are doing to others.
Never, in my 3-4 years of being in Japan, have I ever heard anyone use あたし. Shame, because it is cute ^^
Bonus: If you want to sound cute as a guy (or girl even), speak like a child using ぼぐ。
See that’s really interesting because in my 2 years here, I’ve heard it frequently. Maybe it’s a young person thing? I spent one year as an exchange student at a university in Tokyo and often heard it spoken by Japanese classmates. Now, as an ALT in Hokkaido, I hear it exclusively used by my students.
No it’s not a young person word. I have a lot of obasan hanging at my workplace, and あたし is being used very commonly.
Maybe the poster above just couldn’t differentiate between あたし and わたし、or was living in a region where the word is not so common.
I’m talking about 関東 of course.
My background: I’ve lived here on and off for two years, between Kyoto, Okinawa, Wakayama and Osaka. I work as translator professionally in a Japanese company, and I interact regularly with a wide range of Japanese people, from bros at my Judo dojo to co-workers, old ladies, shop staff who know me well, and friends.
My experience: I’ve asked several Japanese guys this question. I’m a man, so I felt like they could advise me best. They have all laughed at the question. Basically, men use 俺 as their pronoun of choice. If you use 僕 in truly casual conversation, you will absolutely sound like a high schooler, and everyone will see you as somewhat emasculated. The key is “truly casual conversation.” Occasionally, a man will want to express that he’s being casual and friendly, but still stay somewhat professional. Then, he uses 僕.
For example, in my dojo it’s a very masculine sports setting, but also a somewhat formal place (sensei is watching, after all). So, some guys use 僕 there. Ditto for “casual” conversation at work–often you’re “being casual,” but not all the way. In any professional or more formal context, you use 私. If you’re a foreigner who comes to Japan, you may find yourself in mostly 私 territory, since you won’t know people all that well/will be interacting with people in professional roles. But keep in mind that the vast majority of men (especially under 45 and over 15) basically think of themselves as 俺、and then sometimes have to modify that to be polite.
Here’s a poll of men asking what pronoun they use. 俺 is about 5 times more popular than 僕.
So, if you start making friends in Japan, or are talking with someone in a bar, or otherwise escape the gaijin bubble and feel like you’re really connecting to someone, just use 俺。Anything else will in all likelihood make you sound like a foreigner who learned Japanese from anime/a textbook.
As for girls, I haven’t spent as much time figuring out pronouns. あたし seems to be fairly common among women, but I’m not sure how cool vs old it is. You definitely can’t go wrong with わたし in almost any context. This poll shows it as the most popular, but only about 1/3 more common than あたし.
https://vote.smt.docomo.ne.jp/life/result/4292
Last thing: 僕 for girls is a language-education trap! Back in the states, so many of my female friends got excited about it as a way to be cool and bend traditional gender roles when we were taught that it’s sometimes used by girls. Wanikani says this, too. I have literally never heard a Japanese girl use it. I have heard two foreign women use it. One was not infrequently told she was speaking Japanese incorrectly, until she stopped. The other persisted, and people make fun of her behind her back for it. Maybe it’s used by some ultra-trendy subculture in Harajuku that I don’t encounter, I don’t know. But mostly this seems to be something sold as really exciting to foreign girls which then they have to sadly abandon once they come over here.
If anyone has more insight into how cool/old/rural/regional あたし is vs わたし for women, I’d love to hear it.
Cheers, and happy language learning!
I have. Some of students I teach do use 僕.
Well… going by their make-up alone… I don’t want to make assumptions, but I can’t exclude that.
Japanese people I’ve spoken to about it have said this, and this is mixed withmy own feelings too, but
わたし and ぼく are fine, either way.
Somehow おれ
I support the girls-using-boku revolution.
Viva la bokutachi
How weird is it to use your own name? On bilingual news I’ve heard mami use her name as her first person pronoun and she seemed like a normal girl to me.
It depends on the person. It may sound childish if overused. (And I can’t remember hearing a guy doing that)
I would feel weird or presumptuous using anything other than 私 to be honest. I like knowing the others and roughly how they work so I can understand how others feel about the social environment we are in or their standing, but I’m gonna stick to the absolutely safe 
real men use vs
i’m 私 at work or in professional situations, else 俺
i don’t use 僕 at all, it’s not necessary. i’m 43 btw.
Sharing my own experience on the topic:
I mostly agree with @swacht01, Japanese men default to 俺 as their standard pronoun and it’s not as related with one’s personality as textboooks or internet may make you think. The very few occasions I’ve seen Japanese adult men using 僕 were quite the opposite of this “soft and casual” image some people have.
One was my old roommate, an over-masculine guy who said he never uses 私. So when he needs to show respect or to be formal such as when talking with professors, he uses 僕.
Also I’ve noticed elderly male professors (like above 60s, getting close to retirement) tend to use 僕 in class. That is because they are not gonna use 私 but still acknowledge that 俺 is way too casual for the occasion. Never seen anyone using 僕 at my workplace. My senpais use 俺 when talking with younger employees and 私 when talking with our superiors.
On some other options:
Using 自分 as a pronoun is way more common than one would think. It doesn’t appear much on textbooks, but you can hear it quite often. If you search Japanese internet for 自分` 一人称 you will find lots of pages discussing when you should use it, what are the impressions it gives, etc. I’m sure I’ve seen a lot more men using 自分 than 僕 and I also use it sometimes. It is one of the least gender-associated choices you have.
Using your own name is possible in some situations, but not all of them. I do use it sometimes joking when describing myself or what I would do in a given situation, because it has this feeling of making a character out of yourself (what explains why some artists use it.) But using it on regular sentences like telling what you did on the weekend is very unnatural. Also, one should be aware that it does sound a bit emasculated. As a gay man I couldn’t care less, but some people do.
Also, I deeply agree with @Beghaus. The more fluent you get in Japanese, the less you use pronouns at all. Japanese will most of the time omit the first person pronoun and use actual names for second and third person pronouns. Actually, when a Japanese imitates a foreigner, one of the very first things they do is adding 私 on every single sentence, because it sounds unnatural on native Japanese but foreigners often do it.
About women, I don’t usually pay much attention, but I’ve also never seen one using 僕, although I believe those people do exist.
All of that being said, this first person pronoun thing is hard because it’s not only about language, but it says a lot about how you see yourself and other people, while also playing with gender roles. I understand that because of that some people might prefer using some less common choices Japanese wouldn’t use. But one should also be aware that as a non-native speaker, you are in the worst position possible to go all “language is free and I speak as I want, this is my character”. In the end even if you know what you are doing, it’s more likely people will just keep correcting you all the time since you are a foreigner, as swacht01 pointed out.
But it does sound weird when someone who is clearly struggling with the language goes around using 俺. So if you are still stumbling on grammar and taking time to make sentences with more than one verb, maybe you should stay with 私 for a bit more. At least it is never wrong.