Tag Info

In a word: imitation. Between couples, often men will refer to themselves as ore. A woman may refer to him (hence "you") by imitating his pronoun of choice. Often ore is not appropriate in various social situations, such as work. As such, some men may refer to themselves as boku. As a result, some people (both male and female), such as bosses (who may refer ...

The alternative to これ　in polite Japanese conversation is こちら (you should find it in most 初級Japanese text books on how to introduce yourself.) To implement this （borrowing Dono's answer） I would say: こちらは私の父です。 This is my father. こちらは私の両親です。These are my parents. こちらは私の友達、由美子です。This is my friend Yumiko. こちらは私のマネジャー（上司）です。This is my manager. You ...

It is usual to call them last-name+の+お母さん and last-name+の+お父さん (that means, you refer to your friend by the last-name). It is widespread to call people by their function unless you got closely acquainted with them. Both referencing and addressing the same. お母さん・お父さん basically means "my mother / my father", either in direct or figurative sense. (Update: At ...

When addressing children, first person pronouns are sometimes used as second person pronouns. This is done for different reasons, including teaching them to use personal pronouns instead of referring to themselves by name. as a convenient pronoun when you don't know the their name. Using this to address adults seems a bit strange, and I would find it ...

This is very good question and I have faced the same issue with my parents in law and other family members of friends' families. Chocolate has given us an invaluable answer but to add context, I think the simplest rule to follow is "When in Rome..." or 「郷に入っては郷に従え」, and it does not make any difference whether you are in Kanto or Kansai： In other words, ...

How about last name plus さん? Even among good friends, the last name plus 君 is quite common (for male friends), so in a sense, the last name doesn't feel quite as formal as in English (or everything is more formal than in English, depending how you want to think about it). Thus, I think that last name plus さん is very appropriate. After a while, you might ...

When a politician of the political party in power talks to a member of the former Government political party, he/she may say 「お宅の党の政策のつけが今こちらに周ってきているんですよ。」. It is less polite than saying 「～さんの党の政策のつけが・・・」. It sounds equal to say 「あなたの党の・・・」 here but 「お宅」 implies that the relationship between the talking person and the second person is not close and rather ...

I suggest you read this thread: In actual Japanese society, how often are second-person pronouns used? As I replied there, I would suggest avoiding 2nd person pronouns (including あなた) completely, unless you're absolutely sure what you're doing. As you say yourself, it's common to use the name of title of the person you're talking to, so the only trouble ...