Really, really simple question: how does everyone remember which of these means what?
WaniKani’s mnemonics are basically useless for me here, because none of them - especially not the ones between 警察庁 and 警視庁 - actually have very distinct ways of telling them apart. For instance, 警察官 uses 官, which WK teaches as ‘government office’ (it can mean 'bureaucrat, but I had to sidle off to Jisho for this). Meanwhile, 警察署 is also ‘government office’, but in this case refers to an actual place. And of course, 警察庁 and 警視庁 are differentiated in English by one being ‘metropolitan’ and the other being ‘national’, but this geographical distinction isn’t actually stated in the Japanese names.
Any help would be appreciated!
Honestly, I’m half-hoping that writing this thread alone will help these finally stick.
Do we really need to know the difference between metropolitan police department and national police agency? I don’t think we do, so when I mistook one for the other I just undid it. As for 警察署 and 警察官, while I might still mix them up on a flashcard, I’m not going to mistake 警察署に行きました for “I visited the policeman.”
The difference between 警察庁 and 警視庁 is sufficiently non obvious to even Japanese people that I found this long article discussing the difference. For a learner I would say to ignore both until and unless you read enough detective fiction to care. (I do read detective fiction and I couldn’t tell you the difference…)
警察署 and 警察官 are more likely to be generally useful. I think 官 as a suffix is usually indicating a person (didn’t find any exceptions in a 30 second dictionary trawl, at least).
警視庁 is not only metropolitan, but specifically 東京都, I believe.
It’s the only one that is not 警察～, plus there is an element of 監視, so feels more focused.
～官 often means personnel.
～署 feels like an office building, while ～庁 feels like a town hall.
It’s not so much the definition of “metropolis” that’s at play here, but rather the definitions of Japanese words that are being rendered as “metropolis” in English. It’s not helped by the fact that the name 警視庁 doesn’t mention Tokyo at all - the nuance is all contained in the fact that Japanese law states that “警視庁” is the name of the police force of Tokyo: Police Act, article 47, paragraph 1, 「都警察の本部として警視庁を置く」
警視庁 is officially rendered as “Metropolitan Police Department” in English because it has to be redered as something, but it’s not exactly a direct translation.
In the US we also have city police, sheriff’s department, state police, FBI… not even getting into all the specialty “police” like NY Port Authority, BATF, Secret Service, etc.
In some contexts, it doesn’t matter. if you’re in trouble with the law, “the police” arrest you. However, if someone told me I was being investigated by the local police, that would not mean the same thing to ME as if they said the FBI was asking questions about me.
Add a user synonym “police” and move on. It’s not worth spending much time on these. If you bump in them in the wild may help you internalise the meaning. If you never see them - all the better, just forget them.
The police related words that are commonly used are 警察(police, just like english word police) and 警官 (policeman).
Just coming back to this thread to say: these three bits of advice have helped me SO much, they really stuck in my brain for some reason. I haven’t gotten one of these wrong since I made the thread, and even when 警官 (which I’d forgotten was a word) came up in reviews I didn’t have to guess
This thread has also helped me - I was worried I’d have to read all of Detective Conan or something to get them straight. I also came across 都内 and since I’ve learned that Tokyo is actually the only legal metropolis it meant I instantly knew this was “inside Tokyo.”
I think it also depends on where you live. I live in Japan and usually watch the news each evening and hear/see all the various “versions” and find it useful to know which is being referred to and what they are.
I do not find it much different than in Canada or US. Generally “the police” but where I lived in Canada we had a municipal police force, a provincial police force, a national police force and a military police force which are all unique and everyone knows which is which.
