Your Guide to Japanese Personal Pronouns

By OptiLingo • 5 minute read

Learn all about Japanese personal and demonstrative pronouns

Do You Even Need Japanese Pronouns?

Japanese pronouns may be omitted from sentences. Some say this is in contrast to English, but there are many times in everyday speech where this happens in English. For example, “Wanna go?”. Clearly, “you” is inferred. Japanese operates similarly, but the omission of pronouns is not reserved for informal speech.

On the one hand, this makes learning Japanese easier. If you don’t need to say a lot of words, speaking Japanese is a lot simpler, right? Well, not exactly. There are literally dozens of words for the pronouns “I” or “me”. And even more Japanese pronouns that can be translated as “you”.

So, even though you won’t use Japanese pronouns as often as in other languages, you need to learn them and the slight differences between them.

What Are Pronouns?

Pronouns are the words you use instead of the subject’s name. In English, personal pronouns are “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “we”, “you” plural, and “they”. So, as you can see, pronouns are a very important part of English. And you shouldn’t underestimate them in Japanese either.

Why Are There So Many Different Pronouns in Japanese?

In Japanese culture, showing respect is extremely important. So, how you address your parents, elders, bosses, and close friends matters. This honorifics system isn’t unique to Japanese, but having this many pronouns to reflect it definitely is.

In most cases, the Japanese pronoun used will vary depending on the age, gender, and social status of the speaker, and his / her relationship to the person being addressed. So, these slight differences are the reason there are so many different pronouns in Japanese.

Give me more Japanese pronouns!

List of Japanese Personal Pronouns

Below are some of the more common Japanese pronouns. This list is by no means exhaustive. And we deliberately left out the Japanese pronouns that show contempt or disrespect. When you’re visiting Japan, the last thing you want to do is offend the locals.

You can see all of these Japanese pronouns written in Kanji and Hiragana. Additionally, you can also see the Romaji spelling, so you know how to pronounce it. The quality that really matters for these pronouns though is the formality level and which gender they apply to.

Japanese Pronouns for “I” or “me”

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Formality	Applies to
私	わたし	watashi	moderate	males and females
私	わたくし	watakushi	very formal	males and females
我, 吾	われ	ware	very formal	males and females
我が	わが	waga	very formal	males and females
俺	おれ	ore	informal	males
僕	ぼく	boku	informal	males
儂	わし	washi	moderate	males (mostly)
自分	じぶん	jibun	moderate	males (mostly)
家, 内	うち	uchi	informal	females (mostly)
小生	しょうせい	shōsei	formal	males

Japanese Pronouns That Mean “you”

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Formality	Applies to
貴方, 貴男, 貴女	あなた	anata	moderate	males and females
お宅, 御宅	おたく	otaku	formal	males and females
お前	おまえ	omae	very informal	males and females
君	きみ	kimi	informal	males and females
貴下	きか	kika	informal	males and females (typically younger)
貴官	きかん	kikan	very formal	both
御社	おんしゃ	on-sha	formal	males and females
貴社	きしゃ	ki-sha	formal	males and females

The Pronouns for “he” or “she”

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Formality	Applies to
あの方	あのかた	ano kata	very formal	males and females
あの人	あのひと	ano hito	moderate	males and females
奴	やつ	yatsu	informal	males and females
彼	かれ	kare	moderate	males
彼女	かのじょ	kanojo	moderate	females

“we” In Japanese

Learn Japanese personal and demonstrative pronouns

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Formality	Applies to
我々	われわれ	ware-ware	formal	males and females
我等	われら	ware-ra	informal	males and females
弊社	へいしゃ	hei-sha	formal	males and females
我が社	わがしゃ	waga-sha	formal	males and females

The Pronoun “they” in Japanese

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Formality	Applies to
彼等	かれら	kare-ra	moderate	males and females

Demonstrative Pronouns in Japanese

To enhance your vocabulary even further, here are the most common demonstrative pronouns in Japanese. Usually, these are written in Hiragana, but we also provided the kanji spelling.

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji	Meaning
kore	これ	此れ	this thing / these things (near speaker)
sore	それ	其れ	that thing / those things (near listener)
are	あれ	彼れ	that thing / those things (distant from both speaker and listener)
dore	どれ	何れ	which thing(s)?
kochira or kotchi	こちら / こっち	此方	this / here (near speaker)
sochira or sotchi	そちら / そっち	其方	that / there (near listener)
achira or atchi	あちら / あっち	彼方	that / there (distant from both speaker and listener)
dochira or dotchi	どちら / どっち	何方	what / where

How to Learn Japanese Pronouns

Of course, seeing this much vocabulary for one lesson is intimidating. So, we compiled some quick tips and tricks you can use to quickly and effectively learn all Japanese pronouns. Follow these steps to make the most of your Japanese lessons.

Practice them in a sentence: Even though you can (and usually will) ommit pronouns from sentences in Japanese, you can still put them in to emphasize the subject of the sentence. So, pretend like you constantly are for the sake of learning them all.
Say them out loud: While writing these Japanese pronouns is an awesome exercise, you really want to master their pronunciation most. Make sure you know how to say them out loud, should you ever need them.
Use spaced repetition: Spaced repetition is the key to language learning. Basically, you need to periodically review this lesson until you remember every single Japanese pronoun correctly. This is the trick to improving your memory.

Learn More Than Japanese Pronouns

Of course, knowing how and when to use Japanese pronouns doesn’t mean you’re fluent in the language. Even if it’s a necessary lesson, you need a reliable language learning method to truly master Japanese. And what better and easier way to do that than with OptiLingo?

OptiLingo is an app that isn’t just convenient. This Japanese app can help you reach fluency faster than any other. By only focusing on the most common Japanese words and phrases it saves on study time. So, you can focus on your daily routine more and progress with Japanese as efficiently as possible. Achieve Japanese success with OptiLingo easily!