In Japanese, there are many kinds of first person pronouns. I heard that there are around 70 kinds of first person pronouns. Unfortunately, I didn't research all of those words though.
When you say “I” about yourself in English, in the case of Japanese, we use “わたし watashi” or “わたくし”. These first person pronouns can be used by both males and females.
Then, what do you call yourself in the case of males? We have many kinds of these pronouns, this way.
ぼく 僕 Boku / おれ 俺 Ore / わし Washi / おら Ora / おいら Oira / じぶん 自分 Jibun
And, what do you call yourself in the case of females? Also we have many kinds of these pronouns, this way,
わたし 私 Watashi / あたし Atashi / うち Uchi / あたい Atai
And here in Japan, there is a first person pronoun which only the emperor can use. That is this.
ちん 朕 Chin
Of course, you can’t use this word yourself because you aren’t a Japanese emperor. And also there are many Japanese who don't know this word. Because this word is an old word.
Normally, Japanese use “Watashi” as a first person pronoun in public. If you come to Japan, please listen carefully to what they call themselves. Maybe, it would be interesting.
There are many imported foreign words in Japan. Those words came mainly from English or Portuguese. Of course, the Japanese Kanji are based on Chinese characters, however I can say the Japanese Kanji is a little brother of Chinese Kanji.
The Japanese language has Katakana which is a type of Japanese character. When you are learning Japanese, you will definitely be confused about Katakana. Because Katakana has a similar shape as Hiragana, as a literature. For example,
Hiragana : か ka
Katakana : カ ka
Hiragana : せ se
Katakana : セ se
If you are a primary learner, you will definitely be confused by these two types of Japanese literature. Okay, let’s see how to spell “beer” in Japanese.
English : beer
Japanese : ビール biilu
“ビール” is a foreign word based on beer in English. But both pronunciations are quite different. So, when I traveled in the US before, I experienced a very interesting “affair”.
On that trip, I went to a food court with my friend. It was in Los Angeles. We were going to have lunch, so I ordered noodles at the fast food shop. After I ordered, my friend ordered, “One noodles and one beer”. He intended to say “beer” but the shop owner understood the word as "beef". “Beer” and “ビール”. Japanese Katakana is very confusing. My friend was surprised to see beef on the noodle to be served.
Take care.
Updated: Apr 10, 2024
This is a serious story, not a joke. There is a God of toilets in Japan.
One missionary came to Japan from the Philippines, and I met him. He sometimes asks me if the Japanese don’t have God. However I can’t answer his question well. Because I can say both that we don’t have a God and we have a God.
In Japan, since a long time ago, we have thought that there is a God everywhere, that God lives in everything. We call it “Yaoyorozu-no-Kami”. This way of thinking means that nature itself is God. God of forest, God of fire, God of ocean and…
The song called “God of toilets” is very popular in Japan. This song was sung by a female folk singer. And the lyrics of this song is this way;
In the toilet
That means there is a beautiful God.
So if you clean it every day,
you can be beautiful like a goddess
I’m not sure if he can understand what these lyrics mean or not. But, I can say, in my case I can understand these lyrics very well. Yes, actually I was thinking there was a God in the toilet when I was little.
In your country, what kind of God do you have?