Daily lessons · Day 11 of 90
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Family & people
Talk about the people around you
Japanese has two sets of family words: one for your own family and one for everybody else's. It looks like extra work and it is, but the logic behind it explains a great deal about how the language handles politeness, so it is worth meeting properly rather than memorising as a list.
Your own family
Plain forms, used when talking about your family to someone outside it:
The rule is about humility, not affection. When you talk about your own family to an outsider you lower them slightly, because they are part of your in-group and modesty about your own side is the default. It has nothing to do with how you feel about them, and at home you would call your own father おとうさん like anyone else.
Someone else's family
Polite forms, used about the person you are talking to and their relatives:
Notice the pattern: the polite forms almost all take お or ご at the front and さん at the end. That wrapper is the same one you have already seen in おしごと and 田中さん, and it turns up all over the language. Once you spot it you can often guess which of two words is the polite one.
Saying who you have
Family takes います, because people are animate:
います is for people and animals, あります for objects. The thing that exists takes が, which is the same が you met with 好き yesterday: it marks the subject, and it points at new information. Once you notice how often が does this job, the difference from は starts to make sense.
Carry over, from earlier days
Check yourself
8 questions. Nothing is saved unless you finish.