Re:Typed Japanese
by charcircuit on Saturday March 29, 2025 @03:52PM
(#43518148)
>But every-day spoken informal Japanese... no.
Even informal Japanese comes down to basic patterns for grammar.
>For example, word ...
Word choice is not grammar. Knowing how to use words correctly is the hard part.
Re:Typed Japanese
by cynicalkane on Saturday March 29, 2025 @05:14PM
(#43518790)
Well, one nice property of Japanese is the formal language is perfectly workable as a language. You'll sound a little stilted, but that's rather normal for foreigners.
If you spoke English while only sticking to formal grammar rules, you'd be unable to communicate like a normal person at all.
I think the comment on the word 'you' sounding informal is a misunderstanding. People use a common formal noun for 'you', あなた, frequently; it's just the nature of Japanese emphasizes social relationships and makes it easy to drop references to people, so using such formal references can be stilted in the wrong context. But that's a matter of word choice, not grammar.
And then there are a bunch of nuances that don't follow logic. You just need to learn about them. For example, word "you" is always considered informal, a bit intimate and a bit rude in spoken Japanese, it can be used in formal written Japanese.