In English, the pronoun 'I' is a very simple word.
But in Japanese, the case is totally different.
There are different usage between Gender , Age, Situation etc.
The pronoun 'I' in Japanese can have different meaning behind.
The pronoun 'I' in Japanese can have different meaning behind.
So it may a bit confusing when we are using 'I' in Japanese.
To make it clear, we can look at the table below.
You can see the above characters are using 'I' in different style.
For example ,
for the little boy, he uses 僕,
for the girls, she uses あたし,
for the lady, she uses あたくし,
and for the old man , he uses わし.
So let me choose some of them to talk about.
わたくし
This is a very polite pronoun that we can use in some formal occasion.
For the table above, the lady uses わたくし.
It shows that she possesses politeness.
Most probably she comes from a wealthy family which provides her a good education.
Apart from it, this pronoun can be found in book titles. These are the examples i found on web.
わし
From wikipedia, this pronoun is commonly used in the west of Japan,
most probably is used by old man.
we can also see from the table above,
the old man uses it to express himself but not other pronoun like 俺、僕.
If we translate this word into Chinese, it means 老子.
When you use this word, you may be an arrogant person.
As they were famous general in history, they used this pronoun to express their power and ability.
せっしゃ、それがし
せっしゃ is a pronoun used by samurai in the past. We may more familiar with this word.
But there is another pronoun ,それがし, which is similar to せっしゃ used by samurai before.
And these two words are in a polite and humble manner.
あたし、ぼく、俺、俺様
This three pronoun is commonly used by Japanese nowadays.
The first one is used by girls and the second and the third one is used by boys. All cannot be used in formal occasion but only in front of friends or other people who you are close with.
From the table above,
ぼく is usually used by little boys and おれ is usually used by the scrapper.
We can already notice the different between the two pronoun.
ぼく is used by boys who is more polite or a bit weak.
But おれ is used by boys or man who are strong. But this word is a bit rude and impolite.
Here is a video of 花より男子.
In this , we can see that 牧野 uses あたし, 類uses僕 and 道明寺uses俺.
The characters of 類and 道明寺are clearly shown by these pronoun.類 is a bit weak and polite while 道明寺 is impolite and rude.
俺様 is more rude than 俺.
As this implies a message like i am your boss and you are my servants .
You have to listen to my words and follow my orders.
This is commonly used by rich people especially those naive and arrogant one.
This pronoun is also sometimes used by 道明寺.
In fact this is the Taiwan Version of 花より男子, but it is with Japanese dubbing.
If you have watched this Taiwan version, you may found a bit funny when hearing Jerry Yan speaking Japanese.
Apart from the above, i found one more pronoun which is a bit special and not common.
吾輩
When you use this word, it may refer you an arrogant and pround person.
This a satirical novel written by 夏目漱石 which talks about the Japanese society during Meiji period.
The first sentence of this novel is something like' I am a cat, without name.' (sorry for this sketchy translation). Though it is a cat has no name, it is still proud of itself and see human nothing.
The reader can know more about the lives of the Japanese middle class through the eyes of the cat.
This is a well-know Japanese novel and it has many translated version. But still the meaning and the style of 吾輩 cannot be well expressed by other languages.
Because of this famous book, people nowadays use this (吾輩は名詞である) format in their daily life.
For example, the picture below shows the poster of a Japanese drama.
Its name is also using this style of writing.
I have read the gist of this drama, it sounds interesting. i will watch it if i have time.
In fact, more pronoun for 'I' can be found in Japanese.
Though it is hard for us to learn all of them,
at least we know how to use the pronouns we are familiar with in an appropriate way.
