50 Important Japanese Pronouns You Need To Know

Pronouns are used as a replacement to the nouns, such as people, animals, and things, in a sentence. Using pronouns makes your sentences shorter and clearer in terms of meaning. Thanks to pronouns, you can avoid repetitive usage of particular nouns in a sentence. In this article, we will talk about Japanese pronouns, but if we have to make it clear, here are the pronoun types in English:

Possessive pronoun (mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs)

Personal pronoun (I, you, she, he, it, we, they, me, us, them)

Relative pronoun (who, whom, which, what, that)

Reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself, itself, herself, himself, ourselves, themselves)

Indefinite pronoun (some, somebody, anyone, anywhere, nothing, everybody)

Demonstrative pronoun (this, that, these, those)

Interrogative pronoun (who, whom, what, which, whose)

Reciprocal pronoun (each other, one another)

When it comes to the Japanese pronouns, they are very different from those in English because Japanese pronouns can be omitted from a sentence when they are implied through the context and that wouldn’t cause any misunderstanding between speakers.

There are many different variations of Japanese personal pronouns that could be translated as ‘I/me’ and ‘you’ however, not all of them are commonly used in daily life. Each Japanese pronoun variation shows the different characteristics of the speaker including gender, age, social status, level of respect, and the relationship with the person they are talking to. These various pronouns come from Japanese culture since they value respect, seniority, and social order in society.

 

Personal Pronouns In Japanese

There are dozens of personal pronouns in Japanese however, most of them aren’t commonly used so we will introduce the most frequently used Japanese personal pronouns in this post.

First Person Japanese Pronouns

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Level of formality	Gender
私	わたくし	watakushi	very formal	both
私	わたし	watashi	formal / informal	both
	あたし	atashi	informal	female
僕	ぼく	boku	informal	male
俺	おれ	ore	very informal	male

Second Person Japanese Pronouns

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Level of formality	Gender
貴方	あなた	anata	formal / informal	both
君	きみ	kimi	informal	both
お前	おまえ	omae	very informal	male
	あんた	anta	very informal	both
貴様	きさま	kisama	very rude and hostile	both

Third Person Japanese Pronouns

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Level of Formality	Gender
彼	かれ	kare	formal / informal	he
彼女	かのじょ	kanojo	formal / informal	she

Native Japanese people usually prefer to use the person’s name, or to describe them as あの人 (ano hito), meaning ‘that person’ this way you don’t have to indicate gender.

Fun Fact: Also, 彼 (kare) means boyfriend, and 彼女 (kanojo) means girlfriend.

1st, 2nd, 3rd Person Plural Form

In order to make Japanese personal pronouns plural, a suffix is added after them.

The suffix can be 達 (-tachi ), 方 (-gata), or ら (-ra), depending on which word comes before it.

Kanji	Romaji	Meaning
私達	watashi-tachi	We
貴方達	anata-tachi	You
彼ら	kare-ra	They
彼女ら	kanojo-ra	They

 

Possessive Pronouns In Japanese

In order to make Japanese possessive pronouns, add the suffix の (no) to the pronouns.

Kanji	Romaji	Meaning
私の	watashi no	mine
貴方の	anata no	yours
彼の	kare no	his
彼女の	kanojo no	hers
私達の	watashi-tachi no	ours
彼らの	kare-ra no	theirs

 

Reflective Pronouns

In order to make Japanese reflexive pronouns or intensive forms, add the suffix 自身 (jishin) to the pronouns.

Kanji	Romaji	Meaning
私自身	watashi jishin	myself
貴自身	anata jishin	yourself
彼自身	kare jishin	himself
彼女自身	kanojo jishin	herself
私達自身	watashi-tachi jishin	ourselves
彼ら自身	kare-ra jishin	themselves

 

Japanese Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns in Japanese are always written in hiragana. It is a relief that Japanese demonstrative pronouns are easy to remember since they are categorized in groups depending on their level of distance from the speaker or listener. Words that begin with:

• こ (ko-) indicate something close to the speaker.
• そ (so-) indicate some distance from the speaker or something close to the listener.
• あ (a-) indicate a far distance.

Hiragana	Romaji	Meaning
これ	kore	this
それ	sore	it
あれ	are	that
これら	kore-ra	these
それら / あれら	sore-ra / are-ra	those
ここ	koko	here
そこ	soko	there
あそこ	asoko	over there

 

Japanese Interrogative Pronouns

Most of the Japanese interrogative pronouns begin with ど (do-) or だ (da-). Also, we have a detailed post about Japanese question words you can check this out!

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Meaning
何	なに	nani	what
	どの / どれ	dono / dore	which
誰	だれ	dare	who
誰に	だれに	dare ni	whom
誰の	だれの	dare no	whose
	いつ	itsu	when
	なぜ	naze	why

 

Japanese Indefinite Pronouns

In the Japanese language, ‘everyone/everybody’ and ‘anyone/anybody’ is both translated as 誰でも (dare demo) in most contexts.

In a negative sentence using indefinite pronouns such as ‘no one/nobody,’ ‘nowhere,’ and ‘nothing,’ a negative form is usually formed with も…ない (…mo…nai …).

Kanji	Hiragana	Romaji	Meaning
皆	みんな	minna	everyone
	どこでも	doko demo	everywhere
全て	すべて	subete	everything
誰か	だれか	dare ka	someone
	どこか	doko ka	somewhere
何か	なにか	nani ka	something
誰も…ない	だれも…ない	dare mo…nai	no one / nobody
	どこにも…ない	doko ni mo…nai	nowhere
何も…ない	なにも…ない	nani mo…nai	nothing
誰でも	だれでも	dare demo	anyone / anybody
	どこでも	doko demo	anywhere
何でも	なんでも	nan demo	anything

 

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