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Personal Pronoun
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Demonstrative Pronoun
Lesson 3: How to say “He/She” and “They” in Japanese?
In this lesson, I will teach you how to say “He, She and They” in Japanese.
In Japanese, You use 彼 to say “He” and 彼女 to say “She”.
Examples:
| 彼は先生です。 He is a teacher. 彼女は歌手です。 She is a singer. |
By the way, Japanese also use 彼(or 彼氏) to say “boyfriend”, and use 彼女 to say “girlfriend”. Basically, You need to tell the meaning by context.
Examples:
| 私の彼女はかわいいです。 My girlfriend is cute. 私の彼はかっこいいです。 My boyfriend is handsome. |
As for “They”, if they are all male or there are both male and female, you can use “彼ら” to say “They”.
If all people are female, you can use “彼女たち” to say “They”.
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12 thoughts on “Lesson 3: How to say “He/She” and “They” in Japanese?”
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Just to be sure, It isn’t impolite to use 彼、彼女 with superiors or strangers like the lecture before, is it? Or is better to avoid using them in those cases? Also, thank you so much for answering my questions. I’m not sure how to reply your message, so I just wrote it here.
Yeah! It’s okay to use them.
But It’s better if you can use their name directly!
Is 彼ら also able to be used for singular ‘they’?
singular ‘they’? I don’t understand.
You can use “they” as a singular pronoun when it’s used as a gender-neutral pronoun or when you don’t know whether the person is male or female
“The culprit managed to run away” -> “They managed to run away”
Here, you don’t know whether the culprit is male or female so you can use a gender-neutral “they” to refer to the culprit.
I think 彼ら is the closest you’ll get for singular “they”. Coz for your example “The culprit got away” Japanese people would use the specific word for culprit (犯人 – はんにん) rather than refer to them as ‘they’.
“non-binary people” LMAO
Are they even acknowledged in japan? 😅
Yes. I recommend you to read the articles of non-binary language on Tofugu
Hello. Japanese people don’t really say 彼、彼女、彼ら…
For them just sound weird.
They use instead names, family roles or social roles. Or just consider omission.(can be used also for second person, since it is considered rude calling people with あなた or 君).
This would sound rude or weird.
It’s for written Japanese😆, I think people need to know them.
Ah ok, i understood