you don’t get to say 家内 or 妻 or 連れ合い to my wife. not as long as i’m the husband 
If that’s your standard for discussing what words to avoid and what words might be considered rude, then sure, nothing counts. You can always find someone who is happy to use any word.
You seem to have jumped into this from a perspective that this is only westerners misunderstanding the Japanese language. So I am bringing up examples of Japanese people having these thoughts apart from any western perspective, and you just want to dismiss it.
I think we have pretty well established this isn’t going to go anywhere though.
6 Likes
no i don’t. i said that westerners misinterpret complete concepts of this language continuously. A is “polite” (no it’s not, it’s formal, which in turn leads to it being perceived as 礼儀正しい), B is rude (no it’s not, it might be なれなれしい though), and all this BS is discouraging language learners from using the language, despite it being perfectly safe to use under many circumstances, and even when it’s not, you’re a language learner. there isn’t gonna be a samurai to jump out of the bush and behead you for your heresy.
do you understand what i’m trying to say here now?
1 Like
you need to take a look at what this thread was all about in the first place. we’re talking about language like くそ or おかま or ブス, and you’re walking in and bringing up 家内.
while all of these are fine under the right circumstances, 家内 might be the one word in this thread that literally nobody would get all upset about. i’d be extremely surprised to see someone go all rambo on someone for daring to use an old-fashioned version of “my wife”.
if you want to be sensitive about cultural issues, there’s ample opportunity for that, with japan being stuck in the 1950s in some regards, but 家内… my god ^^
1 Like
Literally didn’t happen. I… yeah, have a good one.
5 Likes
yeah, you too man.
Well see this is still the flaw in your argument because I didn’t misinterpret anything. It wasn’t simply a case something not being “formal” it was very much a discouragement to calling women the term. And one even specifically used its very concatenation of the kanji for inside and house that you mocked above for why to avoid using it. And these are middle-aged women who were also wives. So, again, not some radical “woke” crowd as you tried to paint.
No one is saying you can’t use the term freely as you please, but stop trying to act like anyone else avoiding the term is doing so because they’re some “woke” and ignorant westerner. I, on the other hand, will avoid using the term since there are other and less loaded terms that could be used. No different to how I’m not going to call anyone “あかま” regardless of whether certain people still use the term.
2 Likes
see, 家内 is special anyway, because the one and only person you will ever use it with is your very own wife, and you’ll know exactly what you can and can’t use with the one person you’re most intimate with in the world.
just saying “kanai is not politically correct” or some such is silly from the start, because languages are organic, and terms take on other nuances or meanings over time, are being discarded in favor of other terms and so on, which takes a while to settle, and the current most populous generation here in japan, the baby boomers, do still use it and don’t have any second thoughts about it.
if we look at it in 30 years, it might have changed, or it might not, i’m not going to pretend i own a crystal ball that shows me the future.
what i can say, however, is that “my wife” is among the few words where there’s absolutely no confusion over whether it’s okay to use it or not.
no other (japanese) person in japan is going to tell you “hey don’t call your wife that”. i wouldn’t vouch for foreigners though, there’s some nutters running around here.
For anyone curious, here’s an article about a survey conducted in 2015 about problems facing women in society in Japan.
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/articles/1605/26/news035_2.html
One of the options was 「令夫人」「婦人」「未亡人」「家内」のように女性に用いられる言葉が使われること
“The use of words such as these toward women” (note that the use of the suffering passive in 用いられる makes it a little hard to express the full nuance in English)
Yes, they included 家内 on that list in asking if it is a problem in society.
8.4% of respondents said that yes, that issue is a problem in society.
So, yeah, it’s not a high percentage, but the fact that it was even asked at all is interesting to me. And it’s also worth keeping in mind that no option on the list received more than 42.7%… and that was sexual harassment.
So in a survey where not even 50% of respondents think sexual harassment is a problem in society, 8.4% think the use of words like 家内 is a problem.
This doesn’t even really get into what would be said about just something like “would you want to be referred to as 家内” or “how would you feel about someone who calls their wife 家内”
9 Likes
I find it disingenuous to suggest that there are no second thoughts about these terms in Japan and that it’s some kind of “wokeness” that Westerners impose on Japanese society. Discussions about proper language use take place in Japan like they do in other countries – perhaps not to the same degree, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
An example would be this 2017 GQ Japan article, a publication that isn’t traditionally considered a bastion of feminism and isn’t extremely “niche” either, entitled 「嫁」という呼び方、問題あります。やめてください, which mostly discusses the term 嫁, but also touches on other terms, including 家内. The author is a Japanese woman and she is addressing a Japanese audience.
6 Likes
Look just 1 reply above this. Then tell me again how this would realistically be an issue for someone studying Japanese.
The whole issue is so hopelessly blown out of proportion and made into an issue, I don’t even know what to say anymore.
And I’ll leave it at this.
why are you guys digging out all these edge case articles, where someone feels offended by a term?
we’re talking about realistic application by a foreigner in japan here (with the premise of the thread being “what to be careful with”), and seriously, especially in a society like japan, where the current generation “at the helm” very much dictates what’s being used by just being the majority and using it, and the fact that people are not confrontational at all, and the fact that they’re not ignorant to ignore the fact that you’re not japanese and might face language and culture related difficulties when using their language, it’s extreme hyperbole to list these terms as “dangerous to use”.
and once again, for the nth time, 家内 is not something you use with (to refer to) someone you meet on the street, it’s used for (to refer to) your own wife, and you use it if you find your wife and you are comfortable with, and you should be able to tell, seriously. because if not, your relationship problems dwarf whatever language struggles you’re going through.
if you address someone else, do it in a way that won’t get you on confrontation course (being “too close” is the key here, おまえ is a-okay in many cases, and a faux pas in many others, for example). that would fall under “common sense” in japan, but isn’t exactly something you learn by doing flashcards.
Where are your articles proving the opposite? Because I feel like your argument is entirely reliant on “I asked fifty of my friends and they all said no”.
2 Likes
there’s no article describing “all is fine, no news”. i think there was a radio show in the uk some 70 years ago that broadcast something along those lines though.
what we’re dealing with here is internet articles that fall under “various”, interesting to read, maybe as indication for the future. but surely not a red flag in the context of this thread.
If that’s the standard we’re going with, I asked my husband (who uses 妻 to refer to me) and he said while some people do still use 家内, it is beginning to fall out of favor. I also have personally never heard it used in any of the 5 prefectures I’ve lived in. 
2 Likes
You keep saying this like your wife is always going to be standing there when you talk to people about her. If she’s literally there, you’re likely to refer to her by name. A language learner could easily see “家内 is a word for my wife” and use it for a considerable period of time without any idea that anyone thinks it’s a problem and without the wife having any idea what is said about them (and maybe their wife doesn’t even speak Japanese).
I get that your point is “nothing bad is going to happen to you if you end up in that situation.”
Great. We get it.
But you introduced this concept by implying that we westerners invented the issue.
3 Likes
your husband is correct though. there’s people who use it, and it’s old-fashioned. young people don’t use boomer-language, not even in japan.
that doesn’t put it in the “be careful when you use this” category though.
1 Like
You’re making it sound like I unearthed an obscure translation of a Germaine Greer anthology. I provided a link to an article from a rather mainstream Japanese men’s magazine simply as a real life example illustrating the point others have made, namely that there is a conversation about language use, in this instance about terms denoting married women, in Japan that isn’t imposed on them by Westerners who – as you put it – are “judging Japanese people” and “interpret everything using Western categories”.
4 Likes
The fact that it is falling out of favor with Japanese people and isn’t just an issue that westerners have made up is the point, though. You keep moving the goalposts.
2 Likes
if my wife stands next to me, i surely don’t call her なるみ when referring to her. i call her 連れ合い, and if i was 20 years older, i might just use 家内, unless my wife would feel uncomfortable being called that.
whoever you talk to though can’t possibly feel offended by a term that doesn’t describe them, but my very own wife, if she doesn’t even mind herself.
1 Like