'koitsu wa?'

[ichigoTIMU]

ive been watching alot of naruto lately and they seem to say. "koitsu wa..." Is koitsu another way of saying 'he' ?

[Sunny Pig]

"Koitsu" is a crude and not very polite way of saying "this person". It is just like saying "this fellow" in English, not very polite. So "Koitsu wa ..." would probably mean "This fellow ....". The sentence would probably continue to provide more information about "this fellow".

[ichigoTIMU]

wakarimasu! arigatou!

[Godzilla]

I have a GOdzilla comic and they use koitsu throughout almost the whole thing especially to Mechagojira and to Godzilla.

[Blue_Heart]

"Koitsu wa..." is not always an impolite way of saying. Sometimes it is used to build up the intimacy between people. That's why when hearing JPese people talking, i suggest u shoule take notice of their accent.

[Godzilla]

I am assuming in my Godzilla comic that the koitsu there is the rude version of the word. I sure hope that guy isn't trying to get intimate with godzilla.

[lomagu]

What about "omae" and "kimi"? Are they rude to use?

[battousai]

On the scale of politeness, you would use anata, then kimi, then omae. Anata is basically your always correct/polite form of you. Kimi gets bombarded with a lot of rules like impolite between men but fine between male friends or only used in "cute" connotations and so on and so forth..basically, if you don't know when to use kimi, just avoid it. Omae has more of a negative connotation as do usually the koitsu, soitsu, aitsu words. In fact, there's a whole list of them like sonna..anna..yatsu.. that can all have a negative connotation or just be synonymous with their more polite forms. If anything, 100% avoid omae unless you're talking to someone close.

[Gaijinian]

Koitsu is about the same as Aitsu and Yatsu, if that helps...
"that guy"
Kisama/Onore/Temee
are other very rude way's to say you...
Then there is Omae...rude
Kimi... Can be interpreted as rude
...

Sooo many politness levels...

[xdj220]

Omae isn't exactly rude, at least not anymore, just sort of informal. Really, you're in trouble if you use any pronoun for 'you' when you're talking to someone older than you, or a boss or teacher or something. You should always refer to people by name or title if you're trying to be polite. Anata/kimi/omae/etc. are mostly reserved for varying levels of friends and aquaintances.

[lomagu]

cool, thanx! I guess that helps a bit, but still, I hate all the different levels of politeness.. make Japanese more difficult to learn.

Anyway, so, are those many forms of 'you' mainly used by males?

Also, if talking to a group of people, is anatatachi ok to use? maybe in english, I'd say something like, "you guys."

[battousai]

Every language has their quirks and you basically compromise for each one. If you want to learn French(or basically any romance language), you have to deal with gender conjugation, plural conjugation, and formal conjugation all at the same time. However, pronunciation and obviously the alphabet is extremely easy. Japanese has probably the easiest grammar and conjugation system, but has an insane amount of politeness levels and obviously the alphabet(kanji) is extremely difficult. English is somewhere in between with a mediocre grammar system with extremely stupid verb tense conjugations, especially in plural.

[Gaijinian]

xdj220 wrote:
Omae isn't exactly rude, at least not anymore, just sort of informal.

Depending on the context, anyway. If you say to a teacher or something, it is very rude... So it depends.

[xdj220]

Well, as I said, using any form of 'you' to someone above you in status is rude, so using Omae, which is informal, is particularly rude in that context. You'd just call them sensei.

[Humble_Kendoka]

lomagu wrote:
cool, thanx! I guess that helps a bit, but still, I hate all the different levels of politeness.. make Japanese more difficult to learn.

Well, English has this idea of "levels of politeness" too. For instance:

Yes, sir.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yup.
Word.

I definitely wouldn't want to walk into a meeting with a board of directors and use "Yup." And certainly not, "Word, my brothers." Of course, the big difference is, being polite is a much more serious concern in Japanese.

I figure as I learn them, I'm going to try to match up Japanese words that are less formal with English words that are less formal, just so that I can remember where they sit on the politeness scale. Otherwise, if I remember that six words all mean "yes" and another five all mean "you", I'm never going to remember which one's the right one to use.

--V