Page of Japanese terms that appear in the shows

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More Japanese Words

Guide to honorifics

In Japanese an important cultural aspect is to have honorifics to show how people relate to each other.

No honorific: Used between people who are close to each other. If the honorific is dropped between people who aren't close, it's kind of insulting.

-san: Basic honorific, used to show general respect.

-chan: Normally an honorific used to show endearment, see Date from OOO. Can be kind of condescending though. Typically used with girls.

-kun: Normally used to address boys or co-workers in a lower position than the speaker (This applies to women in this case, like Satonaka-kun used by the president in OOO)

-sama: Used to show respect to someone higher than the speaker.

-shi: I don't see it used as often, but it's used for formal speech and for people that are generally unfamiliar to the speaker.

-sempai/senpai and kouhai: Sempai is used for people who are the senior or higher level than the speaker. Like in school or profession. Kouhai is the opposite relation, used to refer to people in the lower level.

-dono/tono: Literally means "lord". Not really used nowadays, but it's used to show a lot of respect to a person.

-tachi: Not really an honorific, but kind of used to show the social structure of a group. Literally means "name of person and others". Since Japanese words tend to be used for both singular and plural, a -tachi can be used to show there's more than one. Like samurai-tachi would show there's a group of samurai. Or Alata-tachi would show that Alata is kind of the main guy in this group. Stuff like that.

You can also read it on the wiki which goes into much more detail than is presented here. I highly recommend it if you enjoy the Japanese cultural bits that are presented in #TV-Nihon's subs.

Ways to say "I" in Japanese

There are a lot of ways to say "I" in Japanese. This says a lot about the person speaking.

Watashi (わたし/私): Generic "I"

Ore (俺): Ultra masculine "I". Using this shows a bit of arrogance or cockiness. Momo is the prime example of this. "Ore sanjou!

Boku (僕): Masculine "I". Can also be used to address boys if you don't know their name. Some modern girls use this.

Atashi (あたし/私): Feminine "I". Girls and gay men sometimes use this. Seriously, any flaming gay stereotype uses this. Atakushi and Atai are older versions of this that aren't really used in modern shows except for women like Utsukawadayuu or something.

Wa (我): Usually used as Wa ga (我が) which means "my", in very formal situations.

Tokusatsu related terms

Kaijin 怪人: Literally means "a strange/suspicious person". It's used to describe humanoid monsters.

Kaiju 怪獣 Kaijyuu: In Godzilla flicks, it has come to mean "giant monsters". It literally just means "a strange beast" and it doesn't necessarily have to be giant.

Oni 鬼: A Japanese monster like ogre or demon.

Youkai 妖怪: Another type of Japanese monster, kind of like ghosts and apparitions.

Other stuff to pay attention to

You might hear this stuff but it won't be repesented in the subs

Anata: Literally means "you" but usually used between a wife to address her husband. I usually translate this as "dear".

Weird pronunciations of English words

Japanese uses a different set of phonemes, basic elements of a spoken language, than English. As such, when they pronounce English, sometimes they have to approximate based on what is available in their language.

L/R and B/V confusion-These are basically the same sound in Japanese.

More Japanese

List of Japanese Words