Yea, so dont use めし while talking to your 日本語の先生

I don’t know what you’re talking about, 御前様 is a perfectly acceptable way to address someone :thinking:

I would imagine it would be rather hard to learn those kinds of words and not also get the little nugget of knowledge that they’re impolite. Wanikani mentions that お前 is rude, and it seems any dictionary worth its salt will indicate rude words. Jisho and JPDB do, anyway.

Though I guess if you were to come across a word in native material that seems like it would be honorific but you’re just not sure, it never hurts to just look it up.

Another exception from “お prefix = polite” rule would be certain words for, ekhm… private parts ( おちんちん and おまんこ), which also have honorific お before them, but shouldn’t be used in any kind of “polite” situation :smiley:

2 Likes

How about お尻? :slightly_smiling_face:

4 Likes

Just fyi, I don’t think butts fall under the category of “private parts”.

3 Likes

It’s gotta be polite for the most important body part uwu

2 Likes

It’s not impossible that in fifty years the euphemism treadmill will have rolled on and お手洗い won’t be the polite word any more…

8 Likes

Depends on if you mean writing a lot in the Japanese only section of the forums or if you mean doing this everywhere on the forums. If the latter, I’d recommend against it. There was someone a few years ago who would write every post in Japanese, even when responding to beginners who were asking for help, and to be honest they came of as being a dick. This is an English speaking forum after all, so outside of the Japanese only sections (and threads dedicated to other languages), conversation should primarily be in English.

6 Likes

Well, this is all a possibility for something that would happen in the future, so its not like I’ve given it much serious thought, but I agree with you for the most part.

The only two things are:

  1. I wouldn’t be trying to reply to people who wouldn’t understand me. I considered the possibility of writing my messages in both english and japanese, but that seems mendokusai. Just for a short post helping a newbie though, eh not so bad anymore. But like I’ve said before, I know if I don’t help, someone else will anyways. The people I’m most interested in talking to on here all would probably be able to understand me.

  2. The japanese section of this forum is kinda dead. And I mean, I kinda get it. The other communities I’m a part of don’t seem to have that problem though (and even have mixed english and japanese chat sometimes) for whatever reason.

5 Likes

Oh no, how am I going to have all my polite conversations with my boss about people’s genitals now? :smile:

It’s a good point though - if you’re ever in a situation where you need to refer to genitals for whatever reason but don’t want to use something kinda vulgar (like, with your doctor or something), these are not the words to use.

Luckily, Japanese has no shortage of euphemisms for them :smile:

1 Like

I’d definitely love to see anyone learn grammar perfectly, with the expectation that oral output will follow. It does not. This is my third foreign language that I am learning and always find it essential to start practicing speaking as soon as possible, ideally with native speakers. That kind of input has been invaluable, I’d argue even more so with Japanese than other languages, , due to the sheer amount of synonyms and politeness gradients. It can be good to learn basic grammar, go through half of Genki 1, let’s say and then continue both grammar and conversation practice.

How else would know that the only proper response to the 飯 fiasco is 大変ご不自由をおかけして申し訳ございません、ご先生さま! That’ll get you over 9000 建前点

6 Likes

Don’t forget to bury your head in the floor. A mere 土下座 will not suffice. If the back of your head is still visible, you haven’t gotten down far enough.

On a more serious note

Perfectly may be a stretch, and input is by no means limited to book learning, but it can. I didn’t have any communication with anyone in English until I was 12 years old or so, but actual fluency in output followed pretty quickly afterward, despite output still being fairly minimal - in the form of beginner-level classes. If we’re talking any kind of significant communication with actual native speakers, I was probably closer to 16 when that happened, and that was still about 99% in writing. Input alone, especially when it’s a lot of input including spoken and written material intended for natives, can lay a very solid foundation for output.

It’s more that a faster and better way to good output is… well, output. And I certainly don’t want to spend 12 years getting to any reasonable degree of competence.

4 Likes

I definitely agree. If you spend years learning a language immersively, without speaking, it is a lot easier to begin. Lots of listening will give you the context in how things are constructed and connected together. Though I’d still argue it is preferrable to start speaking as soon as possible. It makes you more motivated, helps you visualize your progress better, and you’re choosing a more well-rounded approach. If you aspire to talk with natives, this will also give you a boost there.

4 Likes

Absolutely, we agree on that. And what you learn through production helps your recognition too. They feed into each other.

Really, putting off writing and/or speaking longer than necessary helps nothing.

4 Likes

Certainly! I’d also argue that it is more difficult to avoid exposure to English. It is literally everywhere, uses latin and is very easy to find resources for. With Japanese, while the resources are certainly there, it requires more effort to find them and kanji presents an additional challenge when learning. It’s definitely not as straightforward to learn, for better or worse.

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.