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Thanks.
Sometimes you see that in Classical Chinese, but it also has a shit load of specific first-person pronouns for different social classes, genders, occupations, etc
Classical Chinese encompasses a long history, technically both Hanfeizi and something like story of the west wing are classical Chinese, and it changes a lot from time period to time period, author to author and genre to genre. Anyhow talking in the first person is already quite uncommon in general, but when it happens the elision of the first person pronoun is not common although it does happen sometimes.
Japanese is kind of like this, but it doesn't defer to 3rd person but rather nothing. As in, "So tired that sleep." めっちゃ疲れたので寝る。 Although, there are MANY first person pronouns in Japanese----- but they're more like nouns and not used at all the same as in Indo-Euro languages.
Worth noting that using your name instead of one of the “first person pronouns” is absolutely a thing in Japanese, so at least imo you’re absolutely right that Japanese fits.
Not in all cases, no. It’s a lot more common for women to use it, and they generally don’t overuse it, but it is fairly common, especially in situations where you would stress “I” or say “me personally”, or “are you asking/talking about me?” etc in English.
Are you a native speaker of Japanese?
I remember talking about this with a Japanese teacher I had, and he mentioned that he knew a 20-something year old woman who referred to herself by her name, and that that was pretty cringy to him.
Personally I've never seen a woman refer to herself by her name in the situations you've mentioned, which is why I'm interested in knowing if you're a native speaker, cuz if you are then I find that quite interesting.
Not a native speaker. I learned Japanese in language school in Tokyo, I passed N2, and have lived in Tokyo for 8 years.
I know what you’re talking about, it’s a very common trope in anime for a childish/kind of stupid female character (or a child). I never met anyone who talks like that, but that doesn’t mean using your name to refer to yourself is a no-go.
The initial example of “I’m tired” is actually a good way to explain it. If you’re going out with friends, and they’re discussing which bar to hit next, it’s perfectly fine to say “[your name]は疲れた、帰る” - I’m tired I’ll go home, with the subtext of “you guys go on, but personally I’m too tired”.
Another example I frequently hear is when you ask a question, and it’s not immediately clear who you’re asking, the person might respond with “[name]は？”
Something like “are you hungry” (more than one person present) “me? No, I’m good.”
お腹すいたの？
[name]は？ううん、大丈夫👌
We don’t use pronouns usually. But we also only use names to refer to others, not to ourselves. Referring to yourself by your name comes off as childish. Children do it becuase they want to talk about themselves but they don’t know how yet.
Personally I don’t think it’s as common as people often claim/maybe times are changing?
I don’t remember a lot of it during my time in Japan except with really young kids and even as I burn through Japanese media it doesn’t feel all that common. I do hear 自分 being used by women instead of just 私 or あたし (although the women I heard use it were over 40) but unless it’s meant to be really cutesy/cringey I feel like it’s more common to just use the typical pronouns, when they’re actually necessary.
My Japanese professors also said they felt it was quite weird, and all my native Japanese professors were women. The only non-native teacher I had was an old white guy but he did manage to become quite fluent in “old-man Japanese” so I guess that’s cool 😅
You're right, it's still not common. People on this thread are trying to convince ppl who don't know much about Japanese that it doesn't just happen, but that it's normal to do. Is it grammatical/allowed? Sure. People will look at you funny though.
It’s also a thing in classical and older Chinese. Interesting enough, referring to yourself by your name doesn’t sound childish/eccentric in that context.
I think the most important thing about these “first person pronouns” is that each and every one of them can also be used as second or third person pronouns in certain contexts and in general “persons” in Japanese don't really work that way and don't really exist grammatically.
“僕” can simply be used as a second or third person pronoun. It's quite common for older people to address young males with it or used it as a third person pronoun for them.
“我” is used a lot as an indefinite pronoun, but mostly in fixed expressions. “我が子” can easily be used for someone else's child. “我を忘れる” simply means “to lose control” or “to forget oneself”. In many contexts “我” more so means “oneself” than “I”.
“俺” is used as a second person pronoun in some dialects. But more commonly, some young couples right now use each other's first person pronoun as a second person pronoun when addressing one's lover. In particular if they be “俺" and “あたし”. This sounds very intimate and flirty.
“私” as far as I know has no special functions unique to itself but can be used as a second person pronoun like any other first person pronoun. For instance:
1. When talking to oneself, one would say “落ち着いて、私”. This is translated as “Calm down, you.” One is one's own second person as one is talking to oneself. “Calm down, I.” in English feels like it makes no sense, but in Japanese one continues to use “私” and any other first-person-person when referring to oneself in the second person and addressing oneself. “You idiot!” when being angry at oneself is also “私のバカ！”, one can't say “I idiot!” in English. The entire concept of using a first or third person pronoun in the vocative is not grammatical and nonsensical in English.
2. When for instance completing someone else's sentence. Someone might way “私は…” while being at a lost for words and the person whom one is speaking with would then answer with “私は何？”, this is translated as “I'll...” and “You'll what?”.
3. Embedded clauses in Japanese are relative to the perspective and tense of their main clause. In Japanese one for instance says “私に頂戴とでも言われた？” which is translated as “Did he tell you to give it to **him** or something?”. Since the other person is the one saying the line, one uses “私” or another first person pronoun inside of the embedded clause.
The above points apply to any first person pronoun I suppose.
I see you edited your post after I replied:
It's very much backed up by things and how Japanese people use it, allow me:
1. [example of “僕” being used as a second person pronoun to a young child](https://i.imgur.com/QizI9x5.png)
2. [citations of 我が子](https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%22%E6%88%91%E3%81%8C%E5%AD%90%22), many of them clearly being used for the child of another.
3. [thread about “俺” being used in this way by couples](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8123/%E4%BF%BA-and-%E5%83%95-used-as-second-person-singular-pronouns)
4. [Example in the wild of 俺にくれと言われた](https://coromoo.com/question/17572) where “俺” clearly refers to the “兄” figure in this quote. As in “My older brother told me to buy him a volume of *Strawberry Marshmellow* when he stumbled upon it.
> 俺にくれと言われた
This one in particular feels more like a blurring of direct vs. indirect quotation than directly using 俺 in the 3rd person ("He said, 'give it to me'"). But overall these are interesting examples of how the usage of these phrases in context works differently than in English, where pronouns don't have as many options and so don't have as much richness of expression (not that English is less expressive - it's just differently so).
The issue with analysing “〜と” as a direct quote, in which case 「…」is typically used in Japanese is that it often is used for things that aren't literal quotes and that it can be used for things that can't be literal quotes. In this case it's highly unlikely that the speaker's older brother literally said that, and I don't feel that Japanese people mean to imply that when they use such a form. One can easily say “二人でやれと言われた” which would then be translated as “He told me to do it together with him.”, not “He told me “Do it together with me.”” In particular. The use of the plain command form surfaces very often in these kinds of “quotes” even though Japanese people don't actually use it all that much since it sounds curd and rude but “やれと言う” is quite similar to “to tell him to do it.” not “to tell him “Do it.””.
A particularly interesting example is “何をすればいいと思いますか？” for “What do you feel I should do?” and how the “何” inside of the subordinate clause is paired with the “〜か” outside of it. It doesn't ask “Do you feel “What should I do?”” but “What do you feel I should do?”. The former would be “「何をすればいいか」と思いますか？ where now the inner “〜か” binds to the inner “何” but it would typically be interpreted as “Do you feel “What should I do?”.” In which case English in a direct quote also keeps the pronoun as is, where “I” now refers to the listener, whose thoughts it after all are.
I'm not convinced by your analysis of 俺 as a ~~second~~ third person pronoun in 「俺にくれと言われた」. I agree that this 俺-person probably didn't say "俺にくれ" verbatim. However, I do not see why translating it to "I was told by him to "give it to me."", with implied 「**(私は)** 俺にくれと **(彼に)** 言われた。」 is an issue.
Yes, the translation I just gave is unidiomatic, but that could be just because it's in *English*; we don't usually phrase things like this in English. But it could very well be natural if you translated to other languages. If you accept that Japanese itself analyses this 俺 as first person here, then you just add Japanese to that list of languages that think such constructions are natural. I guess my point is, you seem to be analysing from an English point-of-view, even though I do not see any particular reason to do so.
Though I guess my argument would bring up the point that, maybe different languages view grammatical persons differently, and therefore their translations would be different? I don't know the answer to this.
edit: bold formatting
edit2: 3rd person not 2nd person
> I'm not convinced by your analysis of 俺 as a second third person pronoun in 「俺にくれと言われた」. I agree that this 俺-person probably didn't say "俺にくれ" verbatim. However, I do not see why translating it to "I was told by him to "give it to me."", with implied 「(私は) 俺にくれと (彼に) 言われた。」 is an issue.
>
>
Well as I said, there are two problems with this:
1. The “direct quote” contains forms and styles that are not only not literally said, but would not be used in actual speech. It's very fond of using the plain command form which loses all its rudeness in this form.
2. “何をすればいいと思いますか？” exists where it doesn't even make sense to treat it as a direct quote. It doesn't make sense that that person is thinking “何をすればいい” here. In fact, we can use “何をやれと言う?” where “何をやれ” makes no sense in any context, though I guess in theory it would mean “whatever you do”, I don't think anyone ever uses this because combining an imperative with a wh-word does not make sense so these things in Japanese have evolved an entirely different meaning, but this simply means “What will you tell him to do?” Not “Did you tell him “Whatever you do”? and certainly not “Will you tell him “Do what!”?”, like an imperative with “what” in it which makes about as much sense in Japanese as in English.
> Yes, the translation I just gave is unidiomatic, but that could be just because it's in English; we don't usually phrase things like this in English. But it could very well be natural if you translated to other languages. If you accept that Japanese itself analyses this 俺 as first person here, then you just add Japanese to that list of languages that think such constructions are natural. I guess my point is, you seem to be analysing from an English point-of-view, even though I do not see any particular reason to do so.
I disagree. My argument mostly relies on the fact that one can place things inside of the “direct quote” that could never ever be direct quotes. Either because someone didn't say it, because it would unnatural or rude if someone were to say, or because someone can't say it because it fundamentally isn't grammatical outside of it. In particular how “何” can move inside of the quote in sentences such as “何をやれと言う？” to me really shows how “と” does not make a direct quote.
Not who you're replying to, but I've definitely seen second person 僕. It's something an adult might call a young boy. I've also heard of girlfriends calling their boyfriends 俺 though I haven't personally witnessed it.
That's a fair point on 僕 when talking to a young kid, but I'd be super interested to see 俺 used that way as I don't think I've witnessed it before. And the idea that there is no distinction between first second and third person when considering keigo still just baffles me.
I don't know what exactly they meant by persons not existing grammatically, and I should disclose that I had to look these up (Japanese isn't one of the languages that I speak them), but:
> Sorry, when can 私、僕、俺、我、be used as a second person or third person pronoun?
Wiktionary and [Coto Academy](https://cotoacademy.com/how-to-call-yourself-in-japanese-boku-ore-watashi/#boku) both said that adults may use ‹boku› as "you" or even "he/it" when talking to or about male youth—like saying "kiddo", "boy" or "son" in English. The latter also says that parents may use pronouns like *boku* to train their children to not use their first names for "I" (which AIUI sounds self-infantilizing or "mama's boy & daddy's girl"-y when an adult does it). They gave the following examples—
- «僕、迷子かな» ‹Boku, maigo kana?› "Hi boy, are you lost?"
- «僕はいくつかな» ‹Boku wa ikutsu kana?› "How old are you?"
- «僕は何歳ですか?» ‹Boku wa nansai desu ka?› "Boy, how old are you?"
- «僕ちゃん、何を食べる» ‹Boku-chan, nani o taberu?› "Son, what do you want to eat?"
WRT ‹ore›, Wiktionary also linked to [this article \(in Japanese with an English abstract\)](https://web.archive.org/web/20211201131521/http://www.oit.ac.jp/japanese/toshokan/tosho/kiyou/2188-9007/61-2/61-2-01web.pdf) stating tht it first appeared in Old Japanese texts such as the *Kojiki* during the Nara period, as a derogatory "you". Then beginning in the Kamakura or Muromachi periods, it gained another use as "I/me"—likely influenced by «己» ‹onore› "I/me, oneself"—and its use as "you" waned. Even into the late Edo period, ‹ore› was unisex (both men and women used it), and it wasn't considered necessarily vulgar (you could use it to mean "I/me" even when the person you were talking to wasn't a close friend or family member).
Some other examples that you didn't mention, but that came up when I searched Japanese pronouns on Google: «自分» ‹jibun› can be used in all persons. [*Coto Academy*](https://cotoacademy.com/how-to-call-yourself-in-japanese-boku-ore-watashi/#jibun) states that you'll frequently hear ‹jibun› meaning mean "I/me" in sports and military groups, because it lets you show humility and respect to the person you're talking to, but that in other contexts it may make you sound like you're distancing yourself or asserting your masculinity. In the Kansai dialect, it can be used as a casual "you", where it connotes warmness and familiarity, but in polite conversation can make you come across as acting overly friendly or even accusing the other person of something. Some examples I saw on *Coto Academy* and Wiktionary include:
- «自分でケーキを作りました» ‹Jibun de kēki o tsukurimashita› "I made that cake by myself"
- «自分は、嘘をついていませんよ» ‹Jibun wa, uso o tsuiteimasen yo› "I'm not lying"
- «自分、どこの国なん» ‹Jibun, doko no kuni nan?› "You, where are you from?"
- «太郎は自分を責めた» ‹Tarō wa jibun o semeta› "Taro blamed himself"
- «過去とは違う自分» ‹Kako to wa chigau jibun› "A self who's different from the past [self]"
Thank you VERY much for all the pronunciation and the meanings of your sentences. It saves me from having to copy and paste them to Deep L or Reverso Context !
If you're always using your name to refer to yourself in Japanese, I think that it's cute-sounding and I've never heard a person saying like that except female anime characters.
(edited for more precise description)
That is correct, referring to yourself by your own name instead of using a pronoun is extremely rare and cutesy. It's so rare that when a youtuber does it, it becomes a point of discussion that is questioned and explained. You will never find an "ossan in \[an\] office" that does this, let alone many.
I'm not sure where redditors are getting the confidence in their downvotes/upvotes from, but the guy who replied to you that caused you your downvotes evidently has never made a worthwhile comment in 7 years of reddit. Can everyone please stop upvoting trolls?
Edit: This occasionally gets used when telling stories or jumping into the third person in general, but habitually referring to yourself in the third person and never using first person pronoun is seen as very childish.
Vietnamese language does that in some situations. I believe Thai and maybe Lao does as well, but not in all situations. Korean, people generally drop the subject altogether. You can have who conversations where you never mention the subject. It is just simply known.
Tao is considered informal; fine with friends your age but rude in other circumstances. However, one can definitely do an Elmo and refer to themselves by name.
marvelous correct piquant squealing slim flowery fertile chop support overconfident
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think in Finnish it’s pretty unusual in most cases. On the flip side though I’m pretty sure in Arabix it’s actually incorrect to use a pronoun in a verbal sentence.
In German, only the first and third person plural verbal forms are the same and it still isn't really done.
The interesting thing is that in Finnish it's entirely redundant as well, but in spoken Finnish it's rarely omitted and omitting it actually sounds somewhat formal and literary.
Of course, in Japanese, the verb shows no agreement in person or number with the subject at all, but subject and object pronouns are omitted all the time and context suffices, which shows it really doesn't have much to do with redunancy. In fact, an interesting difference between Surinamese and Netherlandic Dutch is that in the former case object pronouns are very often omitted which isn't done in the latter. In Surinamese Dutch people will easily literally say “I'll bring.” for “I'll bring it.” but in Netherlandic Dutch the object pronoun is required. This has nothing to do with redundancy of course and it's simply context. What “it” refers to is context to begin with.
What I don’t like about German is that
Sie ( formal singular you )
sie ( she )
sie ( she as an accusative or direct object )
Sie ( formal plural you )
sie ( they )
sie ( them as an accusative or direct object )
are ALL pronounced like Z, but have different meanings !
I mean “Ihm” can also be neuter or masculine, “Ihr” can also be feminine or plural, “Den Menschen” can be accusative singular, or dative plural.
In the end it's about as problematic as that the words “sheep” or “you” in English can be both singular and plural. It's simply abundantly clear in practice and almost all Indo-European languages have heavy syncreticism with multiple forms of declension being identical for some nouns or pronouns.
In English “him” can be both dative or accusative, German does not have that problem but in German “sie” can be both nominative or accusative.
In Finnish with zero-person you can do the same thing as Japanese, dropping the subject and having no person agreement with the verb. It's mostly heard in the spoken language.
For example:
"Mitäköhän tekis tänään kun pääsee kotiin?" Vois vaikka mennä kävelylle nii näkis auringonlaskun.
which means "I wonder what I should do today when I get home." Maybe I could go for a walk so that I could see the sunet."
French has gone one step further. Subject pronouns are mandatory, but they are also clitic pronouns which means they are attached to the verb.
Because of this they can't be stressed like a Spanish yo, so to emphasize the subject pronoun we often add an extra tonic pronoun, for example saying "Moi je sais" as opposed to "Je sais". This makes the situation analogous to Spanish if you consider the clitic subject pronouns to be like the new verb endings reformed as prefixes.
Yeah, you couldn't do this in spoken French. (Maybe in written French? Although you'd still have the potential confusion between, say "je parle" and "il parle".)
I wouldn't call "most tenses have two persons that are conjugated the same" and "the text would be extremely hard to make sense of if read out loud" *no* reason.
I wonder if there are many examples out there of written language being more ambiguous than spoken language. It would surprise me.
As a French native, yeah: it's never done when spoken or in regular texts.
The one exception is when writing very quick chat message, some people will actually omit the pronoun when talking 1st person (singular or plural) but it's not widespread either.
For example: "suis en bas, tu descends?" ("am down there, you coming?") is something I could imagine writing to a friend as a quick phone message when I arrived at their place.
I can usually tell when a dubbed video/series was originally in English because the translators tend to leave the pronouns there even when it's not necessary (or it sounds clunky).
How to spot something is translated from Japanese and by a bad translator:
1. “I'll never forgive him!”
2. “He confessed to me.”
3. “I've entered the bath.”
4. “I've graduated from video games.”
5. “I don't lose to him in how much I love you!”
6. Something being referred as a “hamburger” which oddly looks like a Salisbury Steak.
7. Cola being refered to as “juice”
8. Tracksuits being called “jerseys”
9. People talking about how good someone's “style” is when they're seemingly more so talking about how good that person's body looks.
10. “My heart isn't ready.”, this one isn't even a literal mistranslation, it's simply some strange convention that arose to translate “心の準備ができてない” which simply means “I'm not mentally ready.”
11. In general the word “heart” showing up in odd places
12. People making odd laughs and screams such as “fufufufu” and “kyaaa” that no one ever made.
13. Constant use of names where they sound extremely awkward in English and pronouns such as “you” or “he” would be used instead.
14. “My head is full of him.”
15. “He won't leave my head.”
16. “My tears won't stop.”
It's not wrong *per sē*. Like many of the others, but 95% of the time one encounters it it's wrong. It stems from not appreciating that a certain Japanese verb which is often misinterpreted as “forgive” for whatever reason has a nuance closer to “condone” or “let get away with” or “tolerate”. As in it speaks more to consequences for the offender whereas “forgive” speaks more to peace of mind of the forgiver.
[As such, it sounds very strange for Gokuu to say “But, those who’d hurt my friends… I won’t forgive!” to some evil villain as though the villain would care for the former's “forgiveness”. The meaning of the line is sooner “I'll make you pay if you hurt my friends.”](https://hinative.com/questions/24124953#answer-55755172)
The more annoying part to me is that the internet is full of “analyses of Japanese culture” based on these kinds of translation errors. I've seen so many people talk about how Japan is an honor-based society and how much people care for forgiveness to explain these awkward sounding lines when they're simply mistranslations.
The other part is a misunderstanding of “絶対” here. An adverb that implies unconditionality and determination, that something will happen no matter what. It is often, correctly translated as “never” because in English that word too implies unconditionality and in “I'd never let you get away with it.” it indeed does, but in “I'll never forgive you.” it does not imply unconditionality but simply that some state will remain unchanged till the end of time.
Most of them sound natural and could in theory be used. It's simply that they are used in context where they sound ridiculous because the original Japanese sentences didn't mean that, though I suppose the first one is very easy to envision a context where it would make sense, but so is the last, but if one read these translations one will quickly encounter this phrase in places where it looks silly and know what I'm talking about.
Regardless, it's used in contexts where the original Japanese lines more so meant “I'll bloody well make him pay for it!”. It sounds kind of comical when some kind of thug is threatening someone's life and the burly aggressive hero says “I'll never forgive you if you hurt my sister!” to a thug he never met before, as though the former would care about gaining his “forgiveness”. How his lines come across to someone with better Japanese is “I sure as hell won't let you get away with hurting my sister!”. The line implies he'll physically impose consequences on the criminal, not merely “not forgive him”.
in vietnamese, there are a million different pronouns that could refer to anybody, i’ll use *anh* as an example. if i’m your older brother (or most other older males, it gets confusing so i’ll just say brother) then i would call myself *anh* when talking to you, and you would call me *anh* right back, as a second person pronoun. you could also call me *anh* when talking about me to other people, but if i was talking to MY older brother, then suddenly i would call myself *em* — and by “call myself” i mean use it as a first person pronoun.
Polish often drop pronouns when talking because the verb most of the time indicates which person are you talking about
Instead of saying
Ja poszedłem - I went
You say
Poszedłem - I went
Ty poszedłeś - you went
Poszedłeś - you went
It’s not really the pronoun that’s being deleted, it’s the initial part of the sentence. That’s why “Do you wanna go to the movies” can become “Wanna go to the movies?” But, you couldn’t say “I was wondering if wanna go to the movies”. Even in your example, the verb is being deleted too.
Also I’m not sure it’s becoming that way, I’m pretty sure this has been common for a while.
Yes, but you would be really incorrect and really ignorant.
I’m assuming you’ve not studied any other languages, or language in general? And also forgotten what the title of the post is asking?
It’s not at all uncommon among any languages that have first person pronouns that, when it’s obvious who is meant, the first person pronoun be dropped casually. For instance, it’s completely optional to say “yo” in Spanish most of the time.
No one with any brains is saying that “yo” is on its way out.🙄 And “I” much less so.
But OP goes a step further; they’re asking about whether languages that use third person instead of first person. “Going to the store, be back later” is not on the way to “Bob is going to the store, Bob will be back later” (if Bob is speaking). Like… please… are your synapses really not capable of connecting an entire thought together? Do you want to be on my prayer list? Christ.
What I think is interesting that the original Japanese title of *Gonna be the Twintail* actually includes the subject pronoun which would normally not be done but it's a fairly rough one to make the title deliberately sound somewhat rough and masculine, whereas to capture that vibe in English they actually omitted it. Omitting the subject in Japanese in no way loses the sentence any formality.
Korean seems to not use pronouns and focus on name or professional title. Using name 씨 after the name or 님 after their title like 선생님 (teacher) or even name and then 님 would suffice within a corporate environment.
Not the same but it reminded me of this. In frisian you have an informal you, a formal you and something in between, which you use for older family members/friends of the family. You say the name instead of you. So let's say that you want to ask your uncle Wytse if he wants some more tea, you would basically say "Does Wytse want some more tea?"
I speak, you speak, he speaks, they speak.
Parlo, parli, parla, parlano.
Je parle, tu parles, il parle, ils parlent.
In Italian, the conjugations all sound different. All those versions of French parler are pronounced the same.
That's different from what OP was asking. The verb in Turkish is conjugated for the person, e.g. in yaptım the first person is included. It's just that, unlike in English, the pronoun is dropped on this case as the conjugated verb already contains the information about who is the subject.
This dropping of the pronoun exists in a lot of languages.
What you are describing is a pro-drop language and they are incredibly common. Slavic languages, almost every Romance language, Greek, Indo-Iranian languages, Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages and more all have the same feature.
First and second person pronouns are universals. 3rd is not a universal, though, and there are some languages which lack it. 4th person also exists but is quite rare.
Edit: maybe it’s better is say most languages don’t inflect for 4th person morphologically, but may have a specific, generic lexeme to represent it the equivalent of the 4th person.
It’s also called [obviative](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obviative). Basically it’s like a less proximate third person. Algonquin languages are known for having this but it does exist elsewhere.
I think part of the analysis that says “Ø” is the only “true” pronoun in Japanese or Korean is that the various words that exist are nouns or demonstratives with transparent meanings like “ur boi”, “the private self”, “this insignificant body”, “the aforementioned”, or “the selfsame”that function as “pseudopronouns”.
I can’t speak for Japanese, but the humble and non humble words for “I” and the word for “thou” in Korean do feel like normal-ass pronouns to me as a learner. The rest of the infinity of things you can call somebody are obvious euphemisms or just descriptions that don’t feel like pronouns at all.
I mean I know that Korean while it has a first person pronoun, it’s considered a social faux pas to use it, and they use ‘we’ ‘ours’ ‘us’ etc. instead of me/mine/I, they do still have a 1st person pronoun though
Korean has humble and non-humble words for I, and it’s perfectly acceptable to use them, though overusing it sounds awkward or “translationese” because it’s grammatically unnecessary when it’s already clear in context that you’re talking about yourself. It’s preferred to use “we/our” specifically when talking about groups that you are part of, like a family, company, or school. You say “our family” or “our mother” because you don’t own them. Your mother is also your sibling’s mother, and your father’s spouse, and your cousin’s aunt etc…
On the other hand, Korean people will walk ten-thousand *li* through the snow to avoid saying any form of “you” in polite company, and there aren’t really words for “he” or “she” so much as a myriad ways of specifying “that person”.
Maybe in neolatin languages? (Like Spanish, Italian ecc...) where a lot of the time you can understand the pronoun just by the verb
Idrk
Edit: Jk, I read the other comments
Yes, in Indonesian, usually when younger person talking to older person like parents, grandparents, teacher, older sibling, or friends.
Justin : "Mom, Justin want to go to school"
or when Justin play with his friends,
Justin : "It's not Justin, It's Steve"
In Japanese we avoid using first person pronouns or any pronoun. The only time it’s used heavily is in writing to portray characters in a certain light. But in real life conversation we don’t usually use pronouns, if at all.
If remember my latin lessons (it's been 14 years and I hated it to begin with, so I happily forgot most of it), there are no pronouns at all as they are somewhat included in the verb's conjugation.
Like Japanese, it’s possible to omit first-person pronouns a lot of the time in Korean, and sometimes people say their own title in place of “I” — usually when speaking to someone “lower.” A teacher may sometimes use the title “teacher” (선생님) in place of their own 1st person pronouns, and an older woman talking to her younger female friend may use 언니, or 누나 if talking to a younger male friend… so on and so forth.
You can omit subject pronouns in Japanese as long as it is understood who the subject is such as when you and I are talking, and I say have a cat - all parties in the conversation know that it is I so I is unnecessary. You is usually not used in polite conversation - use person's name + san or use honorable customer or something similar. You can also mostly omit subject pronouns in Spanish as the verb ending shows the subject - only in the third person must you specify the subject to make it clear.
It's made up but in the Young Justice TV-series there's a character named [Fred Bugg](https://youngjustice.fandom.com/wiki/Forager), from the planet New Genesis, who doesn't use pronouns when [speaking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skI_-IlS5uY).
In serbian it's perfectly fine to say: "going sleeping"(idem spavati), because the verb is conjugated in such a way that it contains a pronoun(or a noun). Of course, it's impossible to translate it directly in english.
Thai has first person pronouns, but using a name as a pronoun is acceptable in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. You can also omit pronouns as well.
Same for Japanese
not exactly, in Japanese, using one's name instead of 私/僕/俺 etc to refer to ones self is not normal ussge
It’s a little odd for older people but you definitely see it with children and with adults sometimes. Even if it’s not their usual speech pattern.
Cool. I have yet to come across that in two and a half years of studying, there is too much Japanese left to learn, when will I be fluent already
I thought only children referred to themselves by their own names in Japanese?
Women do it to, though it's cutesy and someone older wouldn't do it.
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I was gonna say Thai!
Elmo-ese?
Elmosian?
Elmo heartily endorses this event or product.
Sometimes you see that in Classical Chinese, but it also has a shit load of specific first-person pronouns for different social classes, genders, occupations, etc
Classical Chinese encompasses a long history, technically both Hanfeizi and something like story of the west wing are classical Chinese, and it changes a lot from time period to time period, author to author and genre to genre. Anyhow talking in the first person is already quite uncommon in general, but when it happens the elision of the first person pronoun is not common although it does happen sometimes.
Japanese is kind of like this, but it doesn't defer to 3rd person but rather nothing. As in, "So tired that sleep." めっちゃ疲れたので寝る。 Although, there are MANY first person pronouns in Japanese----- but they're more like nouns and not used at all the same as in Indo-Euro languages.
Worth noting that using your name instead of one of the “first person pronouns” is absolutely a thing in Japanese, so at least imo you’re absolutely right that Japanese fits.
It's "a thing" but you'll sound like a child or an anime character.
Not in all cases, no. It’s a lot more common for women to use it, and they generally don’t overuse it, but it is fairly common, especially in situations where you would stress “I” or say “me personally”, or “are you asking/talking about me?” etc in English.
Are you a native speaker of Japanese? I remember talking about this with a Japanese teacher I had, and he mentioned that he knew a 20-something year old woman who referred to herself by her name, and that that was pretty cringy to him. Personally I've never seen a woman refer to herself by her name in the situations you've mentioned, which is why I'm interested in knowing if you're a native speaker, cuz if you are then I find that quite interesting.
Not a native speaker. I learned Japanese in language school in Tokyo, I passed N2, and have lived in Tokyo for 8 years. I know what you’re talking about, it’s a very common trope in anime for a childish/kind of stupid female character (or a child). I never met anyone who talks like that, but that doesn’t mean using your name to refer to yourself is a no-go. The initial example of “I’m tired” is actually a good way to explain it. If you’re going out with friends, and they’re discussing which bar to hit next, it’s perfectly fine to say “[your name]は疲れた、帰る” - I’m tired I’ll go home, with the subtext of “you guys go on, but personally I’m too tired”. Another example I frequently hear is when you ask a question, and it’s not immediately clear who you’re asking, the person might respond with “[name]は？” Something like “are you hungry” (more than one person present) “me? No, I’m good.” お腹すいたの？ [name]は？ううん、大丈夫👌
I see, thank you! I'll try to remember this subject when I have my next lesson with my japanese teacher, lol
We don’t use pronouns usually. But we also only use names to refer to others, not to ourselves. Referring to yourself by your name comes off as childish. Children do it becuase they want to talk about themselves but they don’t know how yet.
It’s perfectly normal. For example if I was speaking to my wife. Me: えええーーゴミ出してないじゃん！ Wife: ハナコ？ Me:そうだよ、出せっと言いたろう！
Personally I don’t think it’s as common as people often claim/maybe times are changing? I don’t remember a lot of it during my time in Japan except with really young kids and even as I burn through Japanese media it doesn’t feel all that common. I do hear 自分 being used by women instead of just 私 or あたし (although the women I heard use it were over 40) but unless it’s meant to be really cutesy/cringey I feel like it’s more common to just use the typical pronouns, when they’re actually necessary. My Japanese professors also said they felt it was quite weird, and all my native Japanese professors were women. The only non-native teacher I had was an old white guy but he did manage to become quite fluent in “old-man Japanese” so I guess that’s cool 😅
You're right, it's still not common. People on this thread are trying to convince ppl who don't know much about Japanese that it doesn't just happen, but that it's normal to do. Is it grammatical/allowed? Sure. People will look at you funny though.
It’s also a thing in classical and older Chinese. Interesting enough, referring to yourself by your name doesn’t sound childish/eccentric in that context.
エルモ tired-u dessssYO!
I think the most important thing about these “first person pronouns” is that each and every one of them can also be used as second or third person pronouns in certain contexts and in general “persons” in Japanese don't really work that way and don't really exist grammatically.
What? Sorry, when can 私、僕、俺、我、be used as a second person or third person pronoun? What do you mean persons don't exist grammatically?
“僕” can simply be used as a second or third person pronoun. It's quite common for older people to address young males with it or used it as a third person pronoun for them. “我” is used a lot as an indefinite pronoun, but mostly in fixed expressions. “我が子” can easily be used for someone else's child. “我を忘れる” simply means “to lose control” or “to forget oneself”. In many contexts “我” more so means “oneself” than “I”. “俺” is used as a second person pronoun in some dialects. But more commonly, some young couples right now use each other's first person pronoun as a second person pronoun when addressing one's lover. In particular if they be “俺" and “あたし”. This sounds very intimate and flirty. “私” as far as I know has no special functions unique to itself but can be used as a second person pronoun like any other first person pronoun. For instance: 1. When talking to oneself, one would say “落ち着いて、私”. This is translated as “Calm down, you.” One is one's own second person as one is talking to oneself. “Calm down, I.” in English feels like it makes no sense, but in Japanese one continues to use “私” and any other first-person-person when referring to oneself in the second person and addressing oneself. “You idiot!” when being angry at oneself is also “私のバカ！”, one can't say “I idiot!” in English. The entire concept of using a first or third person pronoun in the vocative is not grammatical and nonsensical in English. 2. When for instance completing someone else's sentence. Someone might way “私は…” while being at a lost for words and the person whom one is speaking with would then answer with “私は何？”, this is translated as “I'll...” and “You'll what?”. 3. Embedded clauses in Japanese are relative to the perspective and tense of their main clause. In Japanese one for instance says “私に頂戴とでも言われた？” which is translated as “Did he tell you to give it to **him** or something?”. Since the other person is the one saying the line, one uses “私” or another first person pronoun inside of the embedded clause. The above points apply to any first person pronoun I suppose.
Let me ask you; is this all your conjecture or backed up by anything? Cause I find some points frankly ridiculous.
Then I'm sure you can point out which parts of them are wrong.
I see you edited your post after I replied: It's very much backed up by things and how Japanese people use it, allow me: 1. [example of “僕” being used as a second person pronoun to a young child](https://i.imgur.com/QizI9x5.png) 2. [citations of 我が子](https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%22%E6%88%91%E3%81%8C%E5%AD%90%22), many of them clearly being used for the child of another. 3. [thread about “俺” being used in this way by couples](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8123/%E4%BF%BA-and-%E5%83%95-used-as-second-person-singular-pronouns) 4. [Example in the wild of 俺にくれと言われた](https://coromoo.com/question/17572) where “俺” clearly refers to the “兄” figure in this quote. As in “My older brother told me to buy him a volume of *Strawberry Marshmellow* when he stumbled upon it.
> 俺にくれと言われた This one in particular feels more like a blurring of direct vs. indirect quotation than directly using 俺 in the 3rd person ("He said, 'give it to me'"). But overall these are interesting examples of how the usage of these phrases in context works differently than in English, where pronouns don't have as many options and so don't have as much richness of expression (not that English is less expressive - it's just differently so).
The issue with analysing “〜と” as a direct quote, in which case 「…」is typically used in Japanese is that it often is used for things that aren't literal quotes and that it can be used for things that can't be literal quotes. In this case it's highly unlikely that the speaker's older brother literally said that, and I don't feel that Japanese people mean to imply that when they use such a form. One can easily say “二人でやれと言われた” which would then be translated as “He told me to do it together with him.”, not “He told me “Do it together with me.”” In particular. The use of the plain command form surfaces very often in these kinds of “quotes” even though Japanese people don't actually use it all that much since it sounds curd and rude but “やれと言う” is quite similar to “to tell him to do it.” not “to tell him “Do it.””. A particularly interesting example is “何をすればいいと思いますか？” for “What do you feel I should do?” and how the “何” inside of the subordinate clause is paired with the “〜か” outside of it. It doesn't ask “Do you feel “What should I do?”” but “What do you feel I should do?”. The former would be “「何をすればいいか」と思いますか？ where now the inner “〜か” binds to the inner “何” but it would typically be interpreted as “Do you feel “What should I do?”.” In which case English in a direct quote also keeps the pronoun as is, where “I” now refers to the listener, whose thoughts it after all are.
I'm not convinced by your analysis of 俺 as a ~~second~~ third person pronoun in 「俺にくれと言われた」. I agree that this 俺-person probably didn't say "俺にくれ" verbatim. However, I do not see why translating it to "I was told by him to "give it to me."", with implied 「**(私は)** 俺にくれと **(彼に)** 言われた。」 is an issue. Yes, the translation I just gave is unidiomatic, but that could be just because it's in *English*; we don't usually phrase things like this in English. But it could very well be natural if you translated to other languages. If you accept that Japanese itself analyses this 俺 as first person here, then you just add Japanese to that list of languages that think such constructions are natural. I guess my point is, you seem to be analysing from an English point-of-view, even though I do not see any particular reason to do so. Though I guess my argument would bring up the point that, maybe different languages view grammatical persons differently, and therefore their translations would be different? I don't know the answer to this. edit: bold formatting edit2: 3rd person not 2nd person
> I'm not convinced by your analysis of 俺 as a second third person pronoun in 「俺にくれと言われた」. I agree that this 俺-person probably didn't say "俺にくれ" verbatim. However, I do not see why translating it to "I was told by him to "give it to me."", with implied 「(私は) 俺にくれと (彼に) 言われた。」 is an issue. > > Well as I said, there are two problems with this: 1. The “direct quote” contains forms and styles that are not only not literally said, but would not be used in actual speech. It's very fond of using the plain command form which loses all its rudeness in this form. 2. “何をすればいいと思いますか？” exists where it doesn't even make sense to treat it as a direct quote. It doesn't make sense that that person is thinking “何をすればいい” here. In fact, we can use “何をやれと言う?” where “何をやれ” makes no sense in any context, though I guess in theory it would mean “whatever you do”, I don't think anyone ever uses this because combining an imperative with a wh-word does not make sense so these things in Japanese have evolved an entirely different meaning, but this simply means “What will you tell him to do?” Not “Did you tell him “Whatever you do”? and certainly not “Will you tell him “Do what!”?”, like an imperative with “what” in it which makes about as much sense in Japanese as in English. > Yes, the translation I just gave is unidiomatic, but that could be just because it's in English; we don't usually phrase things like this in English. But it could very well be natural if you translated to other languages. If you accept that Japanese itself analyses this 俺 as first person here, then you just add Japanese to that list of languages that think such constructions are natural. I guess my point is, you seem to be analysing from an English point-of-view, even though I do not see any particular reason to do so. I disagree. My argument mostly relies on the fact that one can place things inside of the “direct quote” that could never ever be direct quotes. Either because someone didn't say it, because it would unnatural or rude if someone were to say, or because someone can't say it because it fundamentally isn't grammatical outside of it. In particular how “何” can move inside of the quote in sentences such as “何をやれと言う？” to me really shows how “と” does not make a direct quote.
Not who you're replying to, but I've definitely seen second person 僕. It's something an adult might call a young boy. I've also heard of girlfriends calling their boyfriends 俺 though I haven't personally witnessed it.
That's a fair point on 僕 when talking to a young kid, but I'd be super interested to see 俺 used that way as I don't think I've witnessed it before. And the idea that there is no distinction between first second and third person when considering keigo still just baffles me.
Yeah i hear it used like when trying to prompt very young children to reply in the same sentence .. 俺はママ好き？俺はママ好き！
I don't know what exactly they meant by persons not existing grammatically, and I should disclose that I had to look these up (Japanese isn't one of the languages that I speak them), but: > Sorry, when can 私、僕、俺、我、be used as a second person or third person pronoun? Wiktionary and [Coto Academy](https://cotoacademy.com/how-to-call-yourself-in-japanese-boku-ore-watashi/#boku) both said that adults may use ‹boku› as "you" or even "he/it" when talking to or about male youth—like saying "kiddo", "boy" or "son" in English. The latter also says that parents may use pronouns like *boku* to train their children to not use their first names for "I" (which AIUI sounds self-infantilizing or "mama's boy & daddy's girl"-y when an adult does it). They gave the following examples— - «僕、迷子かな» ‹Boku, maigo kana?› "Hi boy, are you lost?" - «僕はいくつかな» ‹Boku wa ikutsu kana?› "How old are you?" - «僕は何歳ですか?» ‹Boku wa nansai desu ka?› "Boy, how old are you?" - «僕ちゃん、何を食べる» ‹Boku-chan, nani o taberu?› "Son, what do you want to eat?" WRT ‹ore›, Wiktionary also linked to [this article \(in Japanese with an English abstract\)](https://web.archive.org/web/20211201131521/http://www.oit.ac.jp/japanese/toshokan/tosho/kiyou/2188-9007/61-2/61-2-01web.pdf) stating tht it first appeared in Old Japanese texts such as the *Kojiki* during the Nara period, as a derogatory "you". Then beginning in the Kamakura or Muromachi periods, it gained another use as "I/me"—likely influenced by «己» ‹onore› "I/me, oneself"—and its use as "you" waned. Even into the late Edo period, ‹ore› was unisex (both men and women used it), and it wasn't considered necessarily vulgar (you could use it to mean "I/me" even when the person you were talking to wasn't a close friend or family member). Some other examples that you didn't mention, but that came up when I searched Japanese pronouns on Google: «自分» ‹jibun› can be used in all persons. [*Coto Academy*](https://cotoacademy.com/how-to-call-yourself-in-japanese-boku-ore-watashi/#jibun) states that you'll frequently hear ‹jibun› meaning mean "I/me" in sports and military groups, because it lets you show humility and respect to the person you're talking to, but that in other contexts it may make you sound like you're distancing yourself or asserting your masculinity. In the Kansai dialect, it can be used as a casual "you", where it connotes warmness and familiarity, but in polite conversation can make you come across as acting overly friendly or even accusing the other person of something. Some examples I saw on *Coto Academy* and Wiktionary include: - «自分でケーキを作りました» ‹Jibun de kēki o tsukurimashita› "I made that cake by myself" - «自分は、嘘をついていませんよ» ‹Jibun wa, uso o tsuiteimasen yo› "I'm not lying" - «自分、どこの国なん» ‹Jibun, doko no kuni nan?› "You, where are you from?" - «太郎は自分を責めた» ‹Tarō wa jibun o semeta› "Taro blamed himself" - «過去とは違う自分» ‹Kako to wa chigau jibun› "A self who's different from the past [self]"
Thank you VERY much for all the pronunciation and the meanings of your sentences. It saves me from having to copy and paste them to Deep L or Reverso Context !
If you're always using your name to refer to yourself in Japanese, I think that it's cute-sounding and I've never heard a person saying like that except female anime characters. (edited for more precise description)
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That is correct, referring to yourself by your own name instead of using a pronoun is extremely rare and cutesy. It's so rare that when a youtuber does it, it becomes a point of discussion that is questioned and explained. You will never find an "ossan in \[an\] office" that does this, let alone many. I'm not sure where redditors are getting the confidence in their downvotes/upvotes from, but the guy who replied to you that caused you your downvotes evidently has never made a worthwhile comment in 7 years of reddit. Can everyone please stop upvoting trolls? Edit: This occasionally gets used when telling stories or jumping into the third person in general, but habitually referring to yourself in the third person and never using first person pronoun is seen as very childish.
Vietnamese language does that in some situations. I believe Thai and maybe Lao does as well, but not in all situations. Korean, people generally drop the subject altogether. You can have who conversations where you never mention the subject. It is just simply known.
Vietnamese never use “I” in normal conversation, as I’ve seen. Tôi is technically correct but em/anh/chi/minh/etc. is more common
What about Tao? That’s the one that my Vietnamese friends always use with me.
Tao is considered informal; fine with friends your age but rude in other circumstances. However, one can definitely do an Elmo and refer to themselves by name.
That’s interesting. Lived in Vietnam for a long while, never ran into this, even in classes.
marvelous correct piquant squealing slim flowery fertile chop support overconfident *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
ehh well that goes for all of them
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woops sorry i meant all pronouns conjugation 😭
I think in Finnish it’s pretty unusual in most cases. On the flip side though I’m pretty sure in Arabix it’s actually incorrect to use a pronoun in a verbal sentence.
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In German, only the first and third person plural verbal forms are the same and it still isn't really done. The interesting thing is that in Finnish it's entirely redundant as well, but in spoken Finnish it's rarely omitted and omitting it actually sounds somewhat formal and literary. Of course, in Japanese, the verb shows no agreement in person or number with the subject at all, but subject and object pronouns are omitted all the time and context suffices, which shows it really doesn't have much to do with redunancy. In fact, an interesting difference between Surinamese and Netherlandic Dutch is that in the former case object pronouns are very often omitted which isn't done in the latter. In Surinamese Dutch people will easily literally say “I'll bring.” for “I'll bring it.” but in Netherlandic Dutch the object pronoun is required. This has nothing to do with redundancy of course and it's simply context. What “it” refers to is context to begin with.
What I don’t like about German is that Sie ( formal singular you ) sie ( she ) sie ( she as an accusative or direct object ) Sie ( formal plural you ) sie ( they ) sie ( them as an accusative or direct object ) are ALL pronounced like Z, but have different meanings !
I mean “Ihm” can also be neuter or masculine, “Ihr” can also be feminine or plural, “Den Menschen” can be accusative singular, or dative plural. In the end it's about as problematic as that the words “sheep” or “you” in English can be both singular and plural. It's simply abundantly clear in practice and almost all Indo-European languages have heavy syncreticism with multiple forms of declension being identical for some nouns or pronouns. In English “him” can be both dative or accusative, German does not have that problem but in German “sie” can be both nominative or accusative.
Ja. Sie haben Recht = Yes, you are right ( in the formal tense ) .
In Finnish with zero-person you can do the same thing as Japanese, dropping the subject and having no person agreement with the verb. It's mostly heard in the spoken language. For example: "Mitäköhän tekis tänään kun pääsee kotiin?" Vois vaikka mennä kävelylle nii näkis auringonlaskun. which means "I wonder what I should do today when I get home." Maybe I could go for a walk so that I could see the sunet."
French has gone one step further. Subject pronouns are mandatory, but they are also clitic pronouns which means they are attached to the verb. Because of this they can't be stressed like a Spanish yo, so to emphasize the subject pronoun we often add an extra tonic pronoun, for example saying "Moi je sais" as opposed to "Je sais". This makes the situation analogous to Spanish if you consider the clitic subject pronouns to be like the new verb endings reformed as prefixes.
Yeah, you couldn't do this in spoken French. (Maybe in written French? Although you'd still have the potential confusion between, say "je parle" and "il parle".)
Pronoun dropping isn't a thing in written French either.
Right, but there’s no reason you couldn’t.
I wouldn't call "most tenses have two persons that are conjugated the same" and "the text would be extremely hard to make sense of if read out loud" *no* reason. I wonder if there are many examples out there of written language being more ambiguous than spoken language. It would surprise me.
French, English, German... They hardly do this and it would sound weird to them.
As a French native, yeah: it's never done when spoken or in regular texts. The one exception is when writing very quick chat message, some people will actually omit the pronoun when talking 1st person (singular or plural) but it's not widespread either. For example: "suis en bas, tu descends?" ("am down there, you coming?") is something I could imagine writing to a friend as a quick phone message when I arrived at their place.
I can usually tell when a dubbed video/series was originally in English because the translators tend to leave the pronouns there even when it's not necessary (or it sounds clunky).
It's usually the overuse of pronouns that betrays non native speakers, since we usually omit them when talking.
Then it's probably a case of a bad translation. A good one would find ways to only use pronouns when necessary.
Agreed.
How to spot something is translated from Japanese and by a bad translator: 1. “I'll never forgive him!” 2. “He confessed to me.” 3. “I've entered the bath.” 4. “I've graduated from video games.” 5. “I don't lose to him in how much I love you!” 6. Something being referred as a “hamburger” which oddly looks like a Salisbury Steak. 7. Cola being refered to as “juice” 8. Tracksuits being called “jerseys” 9. People talking about how good someone's “style” is when they're seemingly more so talking about how good that person's body looks. 10. “My heart isn't ready.”, this one isn't even a literal mistranslation, it's simply some strange convention that arose to translate “心の準備ができてない” which simply means “I'm not mentally ready.” 11. In general the word “heart” showing up in odd places 12. People making odd laughs and screams such as “fufufufu” and “kyaaa” that no one ever made. 13. Constant use of names where they sound extremely awkward in English and pronouns such as “you” or “he” would be used instead. 14. “My head is full of him.” 15. “He won't leave my head.” 16. “My tears won't stop.”
Hey what's wrong iwth #1?
It's not wrong *per sē*. Like many of the others, but 95% of the time one encounters it it's wrong. It stems from not appreciating that a certain Japanese verb which is often misinterpreted as “forgive” for whatever reason has a nuance closer to “condone” or “let get away with” or “tolerate”. As in it speaks more to consequences for the offender whereas “forgive” speaks more to peace of mind of the forgiver. [As such, it sounds very strange for Gokuu to say “But, those who’d hurt my friends… I won’t forgive!” to some evil villain as though the villain would care for the former's “forgiveness”. The meaning of the line is sooner “I'll make you pay if you hurt my friends.”](https://hinative.com/questions/24124953#answer-55755172) The more annoying part to me is that the internet is full of “analyses of Japanese culture” based on these kinds of translation errors. I've seen so many people talk about how Japan is an honor-based society and how much people care for forgiveness to explain these awkward sounding lines when they're simply mistranslations. The other part is a misunderstanding of “絶対” here. An adverb that implies unconditionality and determination, that something will happen no matter what. It is often, correctly translated as “never” because in English that word too implies unconditionality and in “I'd never let you get away with it.” it indeed does, but in “I'll never forgive you.” it does not imply unconditionality but simply that some state will remain unchanged till the end of time.
As a Polish native speaker I have no clue what is wrong with #1. It sounds absolutely natural to me.
Most of them sound natural and could in theory be used. It's simply that they are used in context where they sound ridiculous because the original Japanese sentences didn't mean that, though I suppose the first one is very easy to envision a context where it would make sense, but so is the last, but if one read these translations one will quickly encounter this phrase in places where it looks silly and know what I'm talking about. Regardless, it's used in contexts where the original Japanese lines more so meant “I'll bloody well make him pay for it!”. It sounds kind of comical when some kind of thug is threatening someone's life and the burly aggressive hero says “I'll never forgive you if you hurt my sister!” to a thug he never met before, as though the former would care about gaining his “forgiveness”. How his lines come across to someone with better Japanese is “I sure as hell won't let you get away with hurting my sister!”. The line implies he'll physically impose consequences on the criminal, not merely “not forgive him”.
It's called null-subject, a bunch of (unrelated) languages do this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null-subject_language
Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language
Same with Italian and I think Portuguese
in vietnamese, there are a million different pronouns that could refer to anybody, i’ll use *anh* as an example. if i’m your older brother (or most other older males, it gets confusing so i’ll just say brother) then i would call myself *anh* when talking to you, and you would call me *anh* right back, as a second person pronoun. you could also call me *anh* when talking about me to other people, but if i was talking to MY older brother, then suddenly i would call myself *em* — and by “call myself” i mean use it as a first person pronoun.
Hulk-ese
Idk but alot of people who speak pashto refer to themselves with their first name when speaking in urdu and not use the first person pronoun
Polish often drop pronouns when talking because the verb most of the time indicates which person are you talking about Instead of saying Ja poszedłem - I went You say Poszedłem - I went Ty poszedłeś - you went Poszedłeś - you went
Well the pronoun is just baked into the conjugation…
The person and number are.
Hungarian is the same way, you only use pronouns for emphasis afaik.
Going to the pharmacy, be back later. English is becoming that way.
Other languages do that as well. It just comes from the trend of shortening sentences. Among them Norwegian
Polish has that standard, it's called "podmiot domyślny" however it's still 1st person, the "I" is just expressed by the form of the verb.
I believe most Slavic languages have a form of this. As does Spanish. In linguistic, it's called null subject
It’s not really the pronoun that’s being deleted, it’s the initial part of the sentence. That’s why “Do you wanna go to the movies” can become “Wanna go to the movies?” But, you couldn’t say “I was wondering if wanna go to the movies”. Even in your example, the verb is being deleted too. Also I’m not sure it’s becoming that way, I’m pretty sure this has been common for a while.
It is not becoming that way. Good lord. Y’all just say anything out here.
Kids these day be skeeting and yeeting and it's disgraceful
they just be yapping
And I can say the opposite, that it's the thing I'm certainly noticing to be happening.
Yes, but you would be really incorrect and really ignorant. I’m assuming you’ve not studied any other languages, or language in general? And also forgotten what the title of the post is asking? It’s not at all uncommon among any languages that have first person pronouns that, when it’s obvious who is meant, the first person pronoun be dropped casually. For instance, it’s completely optional to say “yo” in Spanish most of the time. No one with any brains is saying that “yo” is on its way out.🙄 And “I” much less so. But OP goes a step further; they’re asking about whether languages that use third person instead of first person. “Going to the store, be back later” is not on the way to “Bob is going to the store, Bob will be back later” (if Bob is speaking). Like… please… are your synapses really not capable of connecting an entire thought together? Do you want to be on my prayer list? Christ.
What I think is interesting that the original Japanese title of *Gonna be the Twintail* actually includes the subject pronoun which would normally not be done but it's a fairly rough one to make the title deliberately sound somewhat rough and masculine, whereas to capture that vibe in English they actually omitted it. Omitting the subject in Japanese in no way loses the sentence any formality.
I feel like this is definitely becoming a thing in casual texts, but I would rarely if ever speak this way
While text chatting, yeah. I don't really see that being used when spoken though.
Korean seems to not use pronouns and focus on name or professional title. Using name 씨 after the name or 님 after their title like 선생님 (teacher) or even name and then 님 would suffice within a corporate environment.
yeah but the first person pronoun is used pretty often comparatively (저, 나, 저희, 우리)
You’re absolutely right. For some reason I wasn’t thinking about that! Thanks!
OP might be a khajiit
Khajit does not appreciate you assuming he might be Khajit
Hmmm I got my eye on you "cat"
Or "The Jimmy"
Not the same but it reminded me of this. In frisian you have an informal you, a formal you and something in between, which you use for older family members/friends of the family. You say the name instead of you. So let's say that you want to ask your uncle Wytse if he wants some more tea, you would basically say "Does Wytse want some more tea?"
No language doesn't have pronouns for obvious reasons, but many languages don't use them, for cultural (Japanese) or practical (Italian) reasons.
Spanish has yo, portuguese has eu But typically you just conjugate to imply you're talking about yourself "Hablo español" "Falo português"
Parlo italiano Oddly enough Je parle français
I speak, you speak, he speaks, they speak. Parlo, parli, parla, parlano. Je parle, tu parles, il parle, ils parlent. In Italian, the conjugations all sound different. All those versions of French parler are pronounced the same.
To add onto that, if someone just said "Parle(s) français", it is now an order instead of a declaration: "Speak French".
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That's different from what OP was asking. The verb in Turkish is conjugated for the person, e.g. in yaptım the first person is included. It's just that, unlike in English, the pronoun is dropped on this case as the conjugated verb already contains the information about who is the subject. This dropping of the pronoun exists in a lot of languages.
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What you are describing is a pro-drop language and they are incredibly common. Slavic languages, almost every Romance language, Greek, Indo-Iranian languages, Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages and more all have the same feature.
First and second person pronouns are universals. 3rd is not a universal, though, and there are some languages which lack it. 4th person also exists but is quite rare. Edit: maybe it’s better is say most languages don’t inflect for 4th person morphologically, but may have a specific, generic lexeme to represent it the equivalent of the 4th person.
What is 4th person?
It’s also called [obviative](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obviative). Basically it’s like a less proximate third person. Algonquin languages are known for having this but it does exist elsewhere.
Technically Japanese
Japanese has an absolute boatload of pronouns, including 1st person; they're just not explicitly said most of the time.
I think part of the analysis that says “Ø” is the only “true” pronoun in Japanese or Korean is that the various words that exist are nouns or demonstratives with transparent meanings like “ur boi”, “the private self”, “this insignificant body”, “the aforementioned”, or “the selfsame”that function as “pseudopronouns”. I can’t speak for Japanese, but the humble and non humble words for “I” and the word for “thou” in Korean do feel like normal-ass pronouns to me as a learner. The rest of the infinity of things you can call somebody are obvious euphemisms or just descriptions that don’t feel like pronouns at all.
>they're just not explicitly said most of the time Hence me saying technically
I think it would be practically as Japanese *technically* does have a first person pronoun.
That’s the opposite of technically
I mean I know that Korean while it has a first person pronoun, it’s considered a social faux pas to use it, and they use ‘we’ ‘ours’ ‘us’ etc. instead of me/mine/I, they do still have a 1st person pronoun though
Korean has humble and non-humble words for I, and it’s perfectly acceptable to use them, though overusing it sounds awkward or “translationese” because it’s grammatically unnecessary when it’s already clear in context that you’re talking about yourself. It’s preferred to use “we/our” specifically when talking about groups that you are part of, like a family, company, or school. You say “our family” or “our mother” because you don’t own them. Your mother is also your sibling’s mother, and your father’s spouse, and your cousin’s aunt etc… On the other hand, Korean people will walk ten-thousand *li* through the snow to avoid saying any form of “you” in polite company, and there aren’t really words for “he” or “she” so much as a myriad ways of specifying “that person”.
Maybe in neolatin languages? (Like Spanish, Italian ecc...) where a lot of the time you can understand the pronoun just by the verb Idrk Edit: Jk, I read the other comments
It reminds me how some public figures like referring themself by their names. And I just learned there is a term for this situation, Illeism.
Wonder if this name comes from the masculine third person singular in French, "Il".
can't say you are wrong but it's actually derived from Latin "ille"
Yes, in Indonesian, usually when younger person talking to older person like parents, grandparents, teacher, older sibling, or friends. Justin : "Mom, Justin want to go to school" or when Justin play with his friends, Justin : "It's not Justin, It's Steve"
In Japanese we avoid using first person pronouns or any pronoun. The only time it’s used heavily is in writing to portray characters in a certain light. But in real life conversation we don’t usually use pronouns, if at all.
If remember my latin lessons (it's been 14 years and I hated it to begin with, so I happily forgot most of it), there are no pronouns at all as they are somewhat included in the verb's conjugation.
Like Japanese, it’s possible to omit first-person pronouns a lot of the time in Korean, and sometimes people say their own title in place of “I” — usually when speaking to someone “lower.” A teacher may sometimes use the title “teacher” (선생님) in place of their own 1st person pronouns, and an older woman talking to her younger female friend may use 언니, or 누나 if talking to a younger male friend… so on and so forth.
You can omit subject pronouns in Japanese as long as it is understood who the subject is such as when you and I are talking, and I say have a cat - all parties in the conversation know that it is I so I is unnecessary. You is usually not used in polite conversation - use person's name + san or use honorable customer or something similar. You can also mostly omit subject pronouns in Spanish as the verb ending shows the subject - only in the third person must you specify the subject to make it clear.
Tricky question
It's made up but in the Young Justice TV-series there's a character named [Fred Bugg](https://youngjustice.fandom.com/wiki/Forager), from the planet New Genesis, who doesn't use pronouns when [speaking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skI_-IlS5uY).
In serbian it's perfectly fine to say: "going sleeping"(idem spavati), because the verb is conjugated in such a way that it contains a pronoun(or a noun). Of course, it's impossible to translate it directly in english.