this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
47 points (100.0% liked)
LGBTQ+
6198 readers
1 users here now
All forms of queer news and culture. Nonsectarian and non-exclusionary.
See also this community's sister subs Feminism, Neurodivergence, Disability, and POC
Beehaw currently maintains an LGBTQ+ resource wiki, which is up to date as of July 10, 2023.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not a native speaker, but I've studied Japanese for more than a decade. There are no singular, non-gendered third person pronouns, so there is no equivalent of a singular they. Although there is an equivalent of a plural they, it's not completely gender neutral. The equivalent of him is kare, and the equivalent of her is kanojo. You can make them plural by ending "ra" on to the end of them. Kanojora is used only for groups of women/girls, and karera can be used for a group of men/boys, or a mixed-gender group. That makes the root meaning of karera male coded even if it's used in a gender neutral manner, so non-binary people might prefer not to use that.
This shouldn't however be a major issue for Japanese speakers, as first person pronouns are the only ones that are in frequent use. Unlike English, where you use pronouns to avoid repitition, you can completely omit them in Japanese, so instead of asking "Has Asami done her homework?" in English, you would ask "Has Asami done homework?" It's also preferable to use names instead of 2nd/3rd person pronouns. Instead of asking "How about you?", you'd ask "How about (person's name)?" It's probably much easier for a non-binary person to ask that no pronouns be used for them
As you say, in casual conversation, the subject is often implied after its introduction. So after asking "How is Tomoko?" if you say, "Got yelled at by the boss again?", your listener would know that you would be asking about Tomoko's situation, without saying she get yelled at. In English it tends to default to you or I.