Okay, sometimes I want to speak Japaneese art accounts on twitter or tumblr etc. But I’m too afraid to offend them unwittingly. Because I heard that Japanese people care about hierarchy a lot and you shoul be polite when you’re speaking with them. What do you guys think? Should I wait for learning Japanese better or should I just go in all?
(And nope, I’m not good at English either but hope I could explain myself 
)
2 Likes
Jumping into interacting on something like Twitter in a foreign language is pretty high level stuff.
But most textbooks teach Japanese the way they do to minimize unintentional offense.
ます / です is generally polite and I don’t see why it would cause any problems. Unless you learned Japanese from just chatting with bros, you should be fine on the politeness front.
7 Likes
This. Honestly, ます / です will do for pretty much any situation you’ll find yourself in if you visit Japan as a tourist.
2 Likes
You’re not japanese, so don’t worry about unintentionally offending anyone. I’m not offended by someone speaking bad italian, unless he or she is italian.
6 Likes
Just expect to see alot of 日本語が上手 responses from native speakers.
10 Likes
omg. I had to do a double-take because I read that without realizing I read it. WaniKani is mana from heaven!
8 Likes
Japs on Twitter or tumblr remain pretty casual. As long as you don’t start speaking with purposely rude expressions, you should be fine. There’s very little hierarchy at play there, though you’ll probably have the japanese treating you politely or with honor as you are a foreigner.
Then again, I regularly interact with about 5 doujin artists who I translate for, so even I offend them somehow by mistake, they’ere probably more inclined to forgive me than if I was some random looking for a language buddy. 
3 Likes
I don’t have a chance to go to a language course, so I find it as a chance to improve my japaneese. Even though I can’t read kanji I’m not so bad at understanding Japanese. I’ll try it! Thank you for your advice!
Okay, so if I add ます / です end of the every sentences they will understand that I’m a foreigner so I’ll be forgiven!
Even thinking about this made me motivated 
Okay, I think I can do that, thank you!
Like if you used a slur to refer to them?
12 Likes
Yeah, that was a bit cringeworthy. 
Best way not to offend someone Japanese is to not refer to them as “J-ps.”
2 Likes
To be fair, it’s an English slur, so unless they speak English they probably won’t even know about it. But it’s odd to recommend not being rude while being rude.
5 Likes
Probably be politest to refer to them as 日本人 right? or would that be too formal…
1 Like
日本人 is completely neutral. It’s not formal or casual. It’s fine for basically any situation a learner is going to face.
4 Likes
Is it really? I didn’t know, I’m not a native english speaker. Sounded like a pretty neutral abbreviation to me, oh well ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I’m sure they’ll survive this particular lapse.
I had just assumed you were 13, but I suppose that explains it too.
Alright, Leebo. Let the matter drop and don’t result to personal attacks.
Man, I wish. I’d be the smartest 13 year old I know., and I could hope to go to school in Japan as a student. Now’s the only option would be a mere ALT or JET.
2 Likes
It’s the two groups most likely to not know the word.
Ew, who would want to do that.
I guess 日本の方 would be even more polite, at least it’s the most polite I know 
1 Like
If you want to find some native speakers to talk to, I would rather recommend something like this website than twitter.
1 Like