(1) Ogenki desu ka.
Are you well?
Even when reference to the hearer is verbalized, anata is usually avoided. The speaker is much more likely to use the hearer’s name with -san attached.
(2) Tanaka-san wa moo ano eiga o mimashita ka. (speaking to Tanaka)
Have you (lit., Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka) seen that movie yet?
If the speaker is lower in status than the hearer, he uses the latter’s title as a term of address.
(3) Sensei wa koohii to koocha to dochira ga osoki desu ka. (speaking to one’s teacher)
Which do you (lit., teacher) like better, coffee or tea?
(4) Kachoo wa ashita gorufu o nasaimasu ka. (speaking to one’s section chief)
Are you (lit., section chief) playing golf tomorrow?
Anata is perhaps used more often by women than by men. Women say anata, for example, to their husbands or close friends.
(5) Anata doo suru.
What are you going to do?
Anata has a more informal and less polite variant, anta. It is wise to avoid using this altogether since it is difficult, especially for nonnative speakers, to determine when it can be safely used. (See also kimi. For a detailed discussion of Japanese terms of address, see Suzuki, Ch. 5 “Words for Self and Others.”)
ANE 姉 older sister
Ane is a generic term for older sisters. It is used by adults, especially in writing, to refer to older sisters in general.
(1) Nihon de wa ane wa imooto yori meue da.
In Japan, older sisters are of higher status than younger sisters.
This use of ane, however, is generally restricted to written Japanese. In conversational Japanese, onee-san is the norm.
(2) Nihon de wa onee-san wa imooto yori meue da.
(same meaning as 1 above)
When talking to an outsider, an adult refers to his own older sister as ane.
(3) Kinoo ane ga kekkon-shimashita.
My older sister got married yesterday.
An adult talking to an outsider about the latter’s older sister or* someone else’s uses onee-san.
(4) Kinoo onee-san ga kekkon-nasatta soo desu nee.
I hear your older sister got married yesterday.
(5) Yoshida-san no onee-san wa eigo no sensei desu.
Mr. Yoshida’s older sister is an English teacher.
An adult also uses onee-san in addressing his own older sister or in talking to his family about his older sister.
(6) Onee-san, chotto matte.
lit., Big sister, wait a minute.
(7) Onee-san doko. (speaking to one’s family)
lit., Where’s big sister?
(In corresponding situations in English, one would of course use the sister’s given name.)
The use of ane is restricted to adult speakers. Children say onee-san in referring not only to older sisters in general or someone else’s older sister, but to their own as well, whether they are talking to an outsider or a member of their own family.
Onee-san has variants such as nee-san, onee-chan, and nee-chan (the last two being used mainly by children). Ane also has a variant (though perhaps not a very common one), aneki, which is used by young men in informal conversations, primarily with outsiders.
Since ane sounds very similar to ani “older brother,” the two words must be pronounced carefully and distinctly to avoid confusion. Ane is accentless while ani is accented on the first syllable (see
Ani “older brother” is the male counterpart of ane “older sister.” What can be said of ane (see ane) on the female side, therefore, can be said of ani on the male side. One should remember the following parallels: ani corresponds to ane in usage; onii-san corresponds to onee-san; nii-san, onii-chan, and nii-chan correspond to nee-san, onee-chan, and nee-chan, respectively; and aniki corresponds to aneki (though aniki is much more commonly used than the latter).
The adjective aoi and its nominal counterpart, ao, cover a wider range of color than does “blue,” since the Japanese word may also refer to the range of color that one would call “green” in English. Though aoi normally means “blue,” it can indicate “green” in reference to a limited number of items (though midori “green” is also acceptable), especially vegetation, as in aoi shiba “green grass,” aoi kusaki “green vegetation,” and ao-shingoo “green traffic light.” Centuries ago, according to Ikegami (p. 16), the use of ao for green was even more extensive than now; nowadays, however, in the sense of “green,” midori is becoming more popular.
Aoi also means “pale” in reference to a person’s complexion.
(1) Suzuki-san doo shita n deshoo ka. Aoi kao o shlte-imasu yo.
I wonder what’s happened to Mr. Suzuki. He looks pale.
In this case, no other color word may replace aoi.
ARE あれ that
In Japanese, there are two words corresponding to the English demonstrative “that” as in “That is a park.” They are are and sore. The difference between these two Japanese demonstratives when used with reference to visible things is that are is for something removed from both the speaker and the addressee while sore refers to something removed from the speaker but close to the addressee. Suppose you are talking to Mr. Suzuki and want to refer to a book that he is holding in his hand. Then use sore, as in
(1) Sore wa nan no hon desu ka.
What book is that?
On the other hand, if you and Mr. Suzuki want to talk about a building seen in the distance, you use are and say, for example,
(2) Are wa nan no tatemono deshoo ne.
I wonder what building that is.
When are and sore are used as prenoun modifiers, they become ano and sono, as in ano pen “that pen” and sono hon “that book,” but the semantic difference between ano and sono remains parallel to that between are and sore.
Since,
