Huh. Just what does referring to oneself as "boku", or "watashi", or whatever, have anything to do with Japanese being difficult?

I don't get you, Maass.

GlassSkinned said:

Huh. Just what does referring to oneself as "boku", or "watashi", or whatever, have anything to do with Japanese being difficult?

I don't get you, Maass.

... There are feminine and masculines forms of speaking in Japanese. For example, a feminine way of speaking would be 'kore desu' and masculine way of speaking would be 'kore da ze'. Both mean, 'it is this'.

Another example is how men and women use Japanese on things.
Women say 'ofuro', 'gohan', 'osakana'. Men say 'furo', 'meshi', 'sakana'.
Bath, food/dinner, fish.

The gender differences and word usage can be rather different. I've known some pretty manly men in Canada use feminine forms of Japanese by accident because they were taught by Japanese women teachers.

Also, our cute reverse trap in this comic is using masculine forms of speech.

*Facepalm* Admiral digging his own grave again...

Nagumo said:

... There are feminine and masculines forms of speaking in Japanese. For example, a feminine way of speaking would be 'kore desu' and masculine way of speaking would be 'kore da ze'. Both mean, 'it is this'.

Another example is how men and women use Japanese on things.
Women say 'ofuro', 'gohan', 'osakana'. Men say 'furo', 'meshi', 'sakana'.
Bath, food/dinner, fish.

The gender differences and word usage can be rather different. I've known some pretty manly men in Canada use feminine forms of Japanese by accident because they were taught by Japanese women teachers.

Also, our cute reverse trap in this comic is using masculine forms of speech.

My mistake. I should've said it more clearly.

Anyway, I wasn't particularly talking about the difference between how men and women pronounce things in Japanese.

Rather, I was trying to point out that, in this comic, our cute reverse trap here is shown to be able to speak Japanese just fine; and yet, in this particular strip, she used "boku" as an excuse of Japanese being difficult.

Therefore, it's likely that she already knew that "boku" is the masculine form of first-person pronoun in Japanese. And despite knowing this, she kept using "boku" to refer to herself anyway.

In my opinion, it'd make way more sense if she'd just say that she used "boku" out of habit.

Yeah.
It probably has to do with some biased opinion that the male speech is "simple",
and the female speech is "complicated".
Methinks she got tutored by a guy. :)

Generally when you first learn Japanese, they teach you the 'polite' forms with the 'watashi's and '-masu' regardless of gender.

Same goes with most languages anyway. Beginners are usually taught the 'polite' form (like German 'Sie' instead of 'du') to avoid potential faux pas later on.

Of course, if Lebe were tutored informally then that would be a different case.

Though I suppose Lebe sort of has a point here. Unlike most languages, the gender differences in Japanese is lexical (vocabulary-based) instead of grammatical. From an academic point of view,it's technically not incorrect for a woman to use masculine words in Japanese -- just socially awkward (*cough* chuunibyou Tenryuu *cough*). Grammatical rules would be drilled in pretty deeply in most language classes, but lexical differences (and vocabulary in general), like English "stingy" vs "thrifty" are usually picked up by the student over time via reading and listening.

I do agree with GlassSkinned though (as do some Pixiv users judging by their comments), Lebe has been speaking impeccable Japanese so far "Yokohama Chinjufu"), and the "Japanese is too hard" excuse doesn't work too fine for her. We could chalk it up as one of the conventions of fictional writing when foreigners are involved (as you cannot have them speak too 'broken' a language as it would make it incomprehensible to your readers/viewers), but it does strain suspension of belief a little when it's pointed out directly.

A better reason, as mentioned by GlassSkinned, is for Lebe to admit it's a habit of hers. Especially considering her namesake is a male admiral, and Zerstörer is a masculine noun.

Indeed, the Japanese language (as well as others) have a LOT of socially specific words which can be an absolute pain in the ass to learn.

To slightly expand on what NNescio points out: The simplest American English analogy would be to refer to males as "Sir" and females as "Ma'am". Socially awkward but technically and grammatically correct.

NNescio said:

Generally when you first learn Japanese, they teach you the 'polite' forms with the 'watashi's and '-masu' regardless of gender.

And we're not even scratching the surface of that box called "Keigo" yet have we ?

Seika said:

And we're not even scratching the surface of that box called "Keigo" yet have we ?

The "honor literally everything" speech? Yep, it's amazing.

monhan said:

The "honor literally everything" speech? Yep, it's amazing.

Quoth Richard Feynman:

While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis and do things. I took lessons from a Japanese man every day for an hour.

One day he was teaching me the word for “see.” ”All right, he said. “You want to say, ‘May I see your garden?’ What do you say?”

I made up a sentence with the word that I had just learned.

"No, no!" he said. "When you say to someone, ‘Would you like to see my garden?’ you use the first ‘see.’ But when you want to see someone else’s garden, you must use another ‘see,’ which is more polite."

"Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?” is essentially what you’re saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella’s garden, you have to say something like, “may I observe your gorgeous garden?” So there’s two different words you have to use.

Then he gave me another one: “You go to a temple, and you want to look at the gardens…”

I made up a sentence, this time with the polite “see.”

"No, no!" he said. "In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to ‘May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?’”

Three or four different words for one idea, because when I’m doing it, it’s miserable; when you’re doing it, it’s elegant.

I was learning Japanese mainly for technical things, so I decided to check if this same problem existed among the scientists.

At the institute the next day, I said to the guys in the office, “How would I say in Japanese, ‘I solve the Dirac Equation’?”

They said such-and-so.

"OK. Now I want to say, ‘Would you solve the Dirac Equation?’ —how do I say that?”

"Well, you have to use a different word for ‘solve,’" they say.

"Why?" I protested. "When I solve it, I do the same damn thing as when you solve it!”

"Well, yes, but it’s a different word—it’s more polite."

I gave up. I decided that wasn’t the language for me, and stopped learning Japanese.

AH..... Well, my native language has more pronouns than any other language, that I can guaranty. But I too find that Japanese sure has complicated pronouns usage. You see, me for an example, use "watashi" as speaking in class, in front of teachers but normally, I use "ore". Not to mention there are words that have the same way to pronounce and meaning is just slightly different. Like with just 初 and 始. One is "having the intention to start something", the other is "something getting started". And this is from a native speaker, Mr.Suzuki, one of my teachers, "Japanese sure is hard, even I don't think I can say I'm all that good at it". Well, he's studying linguistic too so maybe that's what's he's talking about though.

MMaestro said:

Indeed, the Japanese language (as well as others) have a LOT of socially specific words which can be an absolute pain in the ass to learn.

To slightly expand on what NNescio points out: The simplest American English analogy would be to refer to males as "Sir" and females as "Ma'am". Socially awkward but technically and grammatically correct.

You could be male on the inside and female on the inside and vice-versa. They are a pain but at least you know not to do it when you make everyone laugh.

NNescio said:

Quoth Richard Feynman:...

There's always the <word>する option which it a verb that states you do <word>.

Demundo said:

AH..... Well, my native language has more pronouns than any other language,...

Would that be Vietnamese?

Ichi_Zeroth said:

Would that be Vietnamese?

Yes, yes it is. Hard time finding how to talk to people I don't really know that are acquaintances to my parents.

Ichi_Zeroth said:
You could be male on the inside and female on the inside and vice-versa. They are a pain but at least you know not to do it when you make everyone laugh.

Not really. I once worked as a butler and one of the absolute rules was to NOT ask if a guest if they wanted to be referred to as "sir" or "ma'am". It sounds like an internet joke; but if you ask a bearded lady if she wants to be referred to as "sir" or "ma'am", the moment you step into the kitchen, you'll be stepping out via the back door.