Transition from formal to casual Japanese

[amai_499393]

Hi everybody,

How would you ask a (Japanese) person if it's okay to use casual language with them? I understand that under certain curcumstances it is obvious, but sometimes I feel like asking beforehand might be a better transition from speaking formal language.
And, more importantly, is it what people in Japan might actually do in real life?

[community.japanese]

amai san,

I know you want to talk with your Japanese friends friendly however, it is hard to answer the question a bit.
It is hard for even native Japanese speakers to know the right timing to change polite form to casual from. The reason why is that you have to consider everything around you for example, relationships among people, place, time, age and so on….
If you can speak Japanese fluently, Japanese people expect you to be able to understand the Japanese culture, too. However, when you appropriately can’t change speaking casually to speaking politely, their impression of you would be worse.
I think that your friends think you speak to them too formally, they would tell you about it.
That is the timing you can change your speaking formality level.
I think being polite is better than being rude so I recommend you to wait until they say so.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[amai_499393]

由紀さん, thank you for the reply.

The reason I'm asking is that my native language is Russian, and here we do have a socially acceptable way to check with the other person if it is okay to use casual language (though to be fair polite form in Russian is hardly as sophisticated as in Japanese). I myself usually do so in situations when speaking formally starts to feel unnecessary, it eases the transition.
So I was wondering whether something like this exists in Japanese, mostly for theoretical reasons. Obviously I'm not taking the matter of politeness in Japanese lightly and I do agree that is is better to use polite language unless it is absolutely clear that casual is fine =)

[community.japanese]

amai san,
Thank you for the reply.
I understood that.
Thank you for letting me know about Russian.
That’s interesting.
If you have questions, please feel free to ask us again.
Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com