Page 217 - Easy Japanese - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly! (TUTTLE)

buchō division chief
kachō section chief
kakarichō subsection chief

manējā manager

hisho secretary
kaisha-in company employee

sararīman white collar worker

GRAMMAR NOTE Family Terms

For each family term in Japanese, there is at least one plain form—to refer to
your own family and used in legal documents—and one formal form—to refer to

other people’s family. Thus uchi no chichi means “my father” and otaku no otō-
san “your father”.
While one refers to her mother as uchi no haha when talking to people
outside of her family, she uses okā-san when directly addressing her mother or
talking to another member of her family about her. Within the family, generally

speaking, the younger members call the older members by the formal family
terms, while the older members call the younger members by their given names.
Another characteristic of Japanese family terms is that each family member
can be referred to and addressed by the family term that is from the viewpoint of
the youngest member. It’s therefore not uncommon for a husband and wife to
call each other okā-san “mom” and otō-san “dad”, or for a parent to call the
older son as onī-chan “big brother” and the youngest son as boku “me”.

Sometimes, strangers and non-family members are addressed by the family
terms that typically represent the age groups. Obā-san “grandma” and Ojī-san
“grandpa” are often used to address seniors, and onē-san “big sister” and onī-
san “big brother” to address young people. Strangers often call a woman
accompanying a little child okā-san “mom”. Avoid calling any woman Oba-san
“auntie”, which implies a middle-aged, not so attractive woman. Instead, you

can use hesitation noises like anō or refer to the person as ano hito (“that
person”).

PATTERN PRACTICE 5

Cue: Uchi no kazoku desu. This is my family.

Response: Ā, gokazoku desu ka. Oh, it’s your family?