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How to say YOU in Japanese

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Anine
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Joined: November 7th, 2006 10:45 pm

How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby Anine » July 21st, 2015 7:13 am

When I first started to study Japanese, my textbook told me to use ANATA where I would use YOU in English (anata no namae wa nan desu ka?). The more I listen to real Japanese and study Japanese, the more I understand that Japanese people try to avoid using anything where we would use YOU in English and instead use the person's name, title or anything else instead of YOU in real situations. Are there any lessons about how to say (or not say) YOU in Japanese here on japanesepod101? Or can you give me a few tips and tricks I can use when I meet someone and try to get to know them and ask them questions, without using YOU at all?

jo3y
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Joined: July 8th, 2015 4:23 am

Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby jo3y » July 22nd, 2015 4:11 am

Hey,

Correct me if I’m wrong here;
But listening to a few 'absolute beginners' lessons i remember them saying that, its more natural speaking to drop watashi (I’m guessing anata too) when both parties already acknowledges the conversation is between them.
I’ve had a few Japanese tell me, you only really need to use it once..

As a native English speaker, it’s still hard for me to wrap it around my head also, but i do get it, as its kinda redundant..

Again, i could totally be wrong here :)

*Edit; Type-o

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community.japanese
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Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby community.japanese » July 23rd, 2015 8:36 am

jo3yさん、
konnichia.
You can ask us anything related to Japanese study here.
Yes, watashi and anata should be omitted when everyone in a conversation knows what they refer.
However, some learners want to know word-by-word translation so beginners lessons have ‘watashi’ and ‘anata.’
As you might have known, if you use anata to your bosses or seniors or elderly people, it’s rude.
Please use people’s name instead of ‘anata.’

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

community.japanese
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Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby community.japanese » July 24th, 2015 1:41 am

Anine san,
Konnichia.
I don’t recommend you to use ‘anata’ most of time.
If you want to say ‘you’ in Japanese, please use people’s names or please omit that part.
It means you don’t need to say say even names if you talk to one person and the person know that you talk to him/her.
If you don’t know people’s names, you had better to ask the people’s names first.
Don’t use ‘anata’ here.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

Celine_thekitten
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Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby Celine_thekitten » May 3rd, 2016 8:40 pm

Konban wa :)

I now this thread is pretty old but I have a question.

Till now I always thought Anata means something like Darling (you know like couples or moms use it)
Maybe I mistook it for another word. So could someone tell me what the right word would be?

Thanks in advance,
Celine
Hey everyone! Let's all be nice to each other!
I hope you can excuse my typing Errors, because english isn't my native language. But I'm trying to avoid them.

community.japanese
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Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby community.japanese » May 29th, 2016 10:20 pm

Celine_thekittenさん、
Konnichiwa. :)
Thank you for your question.
We are sorry about the late reply.
You understand that correctly.
When Japanese people address lovers, they use ‘anata.’
However, when they are angry and want to have a distance from people, they also use ‘anata.’
Yuki  由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

csgom4a4skins2016_512842
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Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby csgom4a4skins2016_512842 » July 2nd, 2016 8:54 am

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neige_schnee
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Re: How to say YOU in Japanese

Postby neige_schnee » July 7th, 2016 9:08 am

san,
konnichiwa.
Thank you for you post.
Yuki  由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

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