Quote:
Originally Posted by omk3
Yes, anata is almost never used in normal conversation, and I believe it may even sound rude in some cases. What I find really weird, is that it seems to be sometimes used by wife to husband as a term of endearment (or maybe it isn't the same word?). Japanese is so different from Indo-European languages, not only in structure but in the whole though process behind it, that I find it amazing that there are some splendid translations of japanese fiction out there. Mediocre translations, on the other hand, are extremely easy to spot, as they tend to repeat some sentence structures that, if they make any kind of sense in english at all, they sound stilted and awkward.
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Yes, it's the same word. But it sounds very natural to me, because it's the same in French: using "tu" when talking to friends and family (and now, with co-corkers) is normal, but using "tu" when talking to a stranger is insulting. Though this is changing now, and "tu" has become much more frequent in the last decades.
There are more and more instances of ads (those targetting young people) using "tu". I find this shocking but apparently, young people must find it normal.
It looks like in this matter, France is following in the steps of Scandinavia and, more recently, Germany. My sister lived in Denmark for a few months, and she told me that nobody uses the equivalent of "tu" any longer, except when talking to the King (which incidentally my sister didn't do
). And I seem to see "Du" in German used much more often than "tu" in French, on magazine covers or ads, or here in the MR forum.