Japanese Pronouns

Japanese pronouns are words in the Japanese language used to address or refer to people or things. Some linguists suggest that the Japanese language does not have pronouns as such, since unlike pronouns in most other languages that have them these words are syntactically and morphologically identical to nouns. As others point out, however, these words function as personal references, demonstratives, and reflexives, just as pronouns do in other languages.

Pronouns are used less frequently in the Japanese language than in many other languages, mainly because there is no grammatical requirement to include the subject in a sentence. So, pronouns can seldom be translated from English to Japanese on a one-to-one basis.

The common English personal pronouns, such as "I", "you", and "they", have no other meanings. However, most Japanese personal pronouns do. Consider for example two words corresponding to the English pronoun "I": 私 (watashi) also means "private" or "personal" and 僕 (boku) also means "manservant".

The words that Japanese speakers use to refer to other people are part of the encompassing system of honorific speech and should be understood within that context. The choice of pronoun will depend upon the speaker's social status (as compared to the listener's), as well as the subject(s) and the object(s) of the sentence.

The first-person pronouns (e.g. watashi, 私) and second-person pronouns (e.g. anata, 貴方) are used in formal contexts. In many sentences, pronouns that mean "I" and "you" are omitted in Japanese when it is clear who the speaker is talking about.

When it is required to state the topic of the sentence for clarity, the particle wa (は) is used, but it is not required when the topic can be inferred from context. Also, there are frequently used verbs that can indicate the subject of the sentence in certain contexts: for example, kureru (くれる) means "give" in the sense that "somebody gives something to me or to somebody very close to me." Ageru (あげる) also means "give", but in the sense that "someone gives something to someone other than me." In sentences comprising a single adjective (often those ending in -shii), it is often assumed that the speaker is the subject. For example, the adjective sabishii (寂しい) can represent a complete sentence that means "I am lonely."

Thus, the first-person pronoun is usually only used when the speaker wants to put a special stress on the fact that he is referring to himself, or if it is necessary to make it clear. In some contexts, it may be considered uncouth to refer to the listener (second person) by a pronoun. If it is required to state the second person, the listener's surname, suffixed with -san or some other title (like "customer", "teacher", or "boss"), is generally used.

Gender differences in spoken Japanese also create another challenge as men and women use different pronouns to refer to themselves. Social standing also determines how a person refers to him- or herself, as well as how a person refers to the person he or she is talking to.