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Originally Posted by ardeegee
I'm wondering-- does that come mostly from academic exposure (language lessons) or from "real world" exposure to the language? Because I watch a huge amount of (English subbed) media (TV series/movies/animated/live action) and "anata" is used often. In fact, "watashi"/"atashi" and "anata" are two of the words I first picked out from repetition associated with the subs (which came after figuring out that the word order was different.) My problem with learning the language is that, given the choice between playing one of my language lessons (I have the 90 lesson Pimsleur Japanese plus a few other audio and video series, all downloaded from the internet) and watching an actual episode of Japanese TV (or a movie) I almost always choose the TV/movie and hope to continue to pick up words/form from context.
On a somewhat related note, a funny classic series of essays by a guy teaching English in Japan:
http://classic.dryang.org/japanese/index.htm |
I lived in Japan for three years, and I don't think I ever heard anyone in the real world use watashi or anata. Gender and situation specific variants of watashi may be more often heard (boku, ore, atashi) but I don't remember hearing them often except on TV. But my experience was mostly with office life, I never had a Japanese boyfriend, maybe that would have changed my outlook on language
I believe these words are mostly associated with intimate situations among very close friends, lovers or husbands and wives, which may explain why they are more used in the manga world (and on TV also), which is often a dramatized version of an aspect of life that you don't get to see very often in casual/business relationships, as real-life Japanese keep it very private.