I am literally friends with a woman that decided when she lived in Japan that the more lower classl/colloquial form of Japanese was easier and only spoke that. So there is a white, Ph. D., upper class woman that speaks fluent Japanese, but only like a Yakuza.
a woman that decided when she lived in Japan that the more lower classl/colloquial form of Japanese was easier
It’s not that she decided it was easier, it’s just a fact. For example:
casual: taberu - [subj] eats. This is the form listed in the dictionary and can be used as is.
basic polite: tabemasu. Used with strangers.
humble: itadakimasu. Used to talk about your own eating when in conversation with a superior.
honorific: meshiagarimasu. Used to refer to a superior eating.
Basically the more polite something is the longer the verb form. One of the be-verbs goes from casual to polite as da --> desu --> degozaimasu
I practiced most of my Japanese conversation skills by hanging out in bars so I know the struggle with using polite forms.
I don’t speak Japanese, but it is a combination of slang and lack of formal addresses, conjugations, or cases. Like Romance languages having formal and informal versions of “you” and using terms like monsieur.
I am literally friends with a woman that decided when she lived in Japan that the more lower classl/colloquial form of Japanese was easier and only spoke that. So there is a white, Ph. D., upper class woman that speaks fluent Japanese, but only like a Yakuza.
It’s not that she decided it was easier, it’s just a fact. For example:
casual: taberu - [subj] eats. This is the form listed in the dictionary and can be used as is.
basic polite: tabemasu. Used with strangers.
humble: itadakimasu. Used to talk about your own eating when in conversation with a superior.
honorific: meshiagarimasu. Used to refer to a superior eating.
Basically the more polite something is the longer the verb form. One of the be-verbs goes from casual to polite as da --> desu --> degozaimasu
I practiced most of my Japanese conversation skills by hanging out in bars so I know the struggle with using polite forms.
How do Yakuza speak?
I don’t speak Japanese, but it is a combination of slang and lack of formal addresses, conjugations, or cases. Like Romance languages having formal and informal versions of “you” and using terms like monsieur.