Japanese For Daddy
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Japanese For Daddy
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Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Otou-san is just the tip of the paternal iceberg .
Just like the U.S., Japan celebrates Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June. The way Japan celebrates it is pretty similar too: presents, dinner out, and a greater willingness to just let dad relax and sip his beer in peace while relaxing on the couch and watching golf on TV.
Some things are still uniquely Japanese, though. With father’s day coming at the start of the summer, a nice jinbei (a traditional Japanese roomwear garment) is a popular present, and some of the top restaurant picks are yakiniku or kaitenzushi (revolving sushi) joints. And of course, they don’t call it “Father’s Day” in Japan, since there’s a Japanese word for “father.”
Well, actually, there are a ton of different ways to say “father” in Japanese, and what better day to take a look at them than today?
Technically we’re going to look at five different but related terms here in entry #1.
If you’ve ever taken an introductory Japanese class, or watched many J-dramas or anime, this is probably the first one you learned. Otou-san is the most common, broadly usable phrase for father/dad in Japanese .
At the same time, it’s actually just one of many arrangements in a surprisingly flexible system . -san is the standard suffix to show politeness when talking about a person in Japan, but if you want to kick the politeness/formality up a notch, you can change it to otou-sama . On the other hand, if you want to go the other way and make it sound more sweetly affectionate, you can say otou-chan (though that one’s most commonly used by little kids). As a quick-and-simple rough equivalency list you can generally think of otou-san as “dad,” otou-sama as “father,” and otou-chan as “daddy.”
Speaking of politeness, the o at the start of otou-san is itself a politeness-boosting prefix, so you can remove it and just say tou-san or tou-chan . Tou-sama, however, is a combination you’ll never hear, since -sama itself is too formal to fit with the dropped o.
One important thing to keep in mind: since politeness towards others and humility regarding yourself/your own family are considered good manners in Japanese culture, when you’re talking about someone else’s father, it’s best to stick with otou-san or otou-sama , the most polite options. Out of the two, otou-san is usually the wisest choice, since otou-sama can sound a little baroque, and it’s also best to avoid otou-sama when talking about your own dad, since it can make you sound conceited about your father’s status, or perhaps intimidated by his stature.
Our second way to say father, chichi , is actually written with the exact same kanji character as the “tou” part of otou-san (父), just with no additional hiragana characters in front of or behind it. That unfettered status makes chichi the most absolutely neutral way to say father in Japanese, and so the lack of added politeness means you usually don’t use it to talk about someone else’s dad .
However, there’s a school of thought that you absolutely should use chichi when talking about your own dad once you reach adulthood . The logic is that otou-san and its various alternate forms are all, to some extent, terms of respect. As such, if you’re talking to someone else and use the term otou-san to refer to your own father, the linguistic implication is that you’re saying that your dad occupies a position of higher respect than the person you’re talking to.
If you’re a little kid talking to another little kid, that’s not an issue, since adults are generally in a position of authority compared to children. But if you’re a full-grown adult talking to another adult, it’d be kind of presumptuous to talk as though your dad is in a position that demands the other person’s respect like it’s a matter of course, and so chichi, in some people’s minds, becomes the better choice for talking about your own dad in grown-up conversations.
All that said, “you shouldn’t use otou-san for talking about your own dad to other people” is an admittedly old-school way of thinking, and a guideline that younger Japanese people are increasingly less likely to adhere to or worry about. And last, chichi is the word used in the Japanese term for father’s day, Chichi no Hi .
Yep, papa . Just like in English and many European languages, papa is now readily understood in Japanese . It does, however, have a very childish ring to it, and so it’s something that most kids, especially boys, start growing out of by the time they finish elementary school . Some women continue to use it into adulthood, but even then primarily when speaking directly to their father or other family members, not in conversations with other people, to avoid being seen as a daddy’s girl.
Oyaji is really two vocabulary words in one . Written with the kanji characters for “parent” (親) and “father” (父), it not only means dad, but is also a generic term for a middle-aged or elderly man .
Oyaji is the roughest-sounding term on our list, but said with enough warmth in your voice, it can also radiate a certain masculine jovialness, and is almost exclusively used by men.
▼ Pictured: Mr. Sato’s dad , who he calls “oyaji”
In English, oyaji is closest to “pop” or “pops.” In keeping with that casualness, while oyaji can be written in kanji, you’ll also often see it written in hiragana, which has a less formal feel. And yes, you may have also heard oyaji as part of the phrase “ero oyaji” (“dirty old man”).
As we move further down the list, we’re also moving farther out into the countryside. To people from Tokyo and east Japan, oton has a decidedly country bumpkin feel, sort of like “pa” in English.
But oton isn’t strictly for yokels, and as you head west from Tokyo, you’ll start to hear it used by people who speak Kansai dialect, the style of Japanese prevalent in and around Osaka. That said, oton always carries a bit of a rustic feeling, and while some may say that’s just backwoods charm, it’ll probably earn a few chuckles if you say it in a formal situation.
On the surface, chichiue looks like it shouldn’t be all that different from chichi. After all, it’s just the same “dad” kanji as chichi (父) with 上, meaning “up” or “above,” tacked onto the end. So it’s just a polite way of saying father, right?
Sure…if you happen to be a samurai. Chichiue is an extremely old-fashioned way of speaking, and it’s more or less like saying “exalted father.”
And last, we come to chichioya. Written by reversing the kanji for oyaji, putting “father” first and “parent” second. Chichioya is a useful term for talking about fathers in a general or societal sense, perhaps in a prepared announcement or written statement. Generally, though it’s not so commonly used in conversation to talk about a specific person’s father, and especially not your own.
So just like when we looked at the different ways to say “love,” once again Japanese proves itself to be a seriously deep language. Thanks for reading, and happy Father’s Day to you and your dad, whatever you call him.
Top image: Pakutaso
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July 2, 2020 January 13, 2020 by Nick Hoyt
In Japanese culture, the father figure is an important one. Not just for his role within his own family, but also the status that he has within the broader society. So, how do you say dad in Japanese?
Well like most Japanese words, there isn’t just one answer. Nope, that would be too easy!
So instead I’m going to share about eight different ways to say dad in Japanese! But don’t freak out (yet) because some of them are only slight variations of the same word. Let’s see them now.
The Japanese word for dad is 父 (chichi). However, this word is a part of the “humble” Japanese language which means that you use it to lower your own status. This is an indirect way of raising the other person’s status (the listener) and showing them respect.
Since you’re not talking about yourself in this case, you’re lowering the status of your father (therefore your own family) when speaking to people who are outside of your family.
In other words, this word would be used when talking to other people about your own dad. You would never want to use it with someone else’s dad because to lower their status like that would be disrespectful.
You also wouldn’t want to use it towards your father, since children are supposed to show their parents respect and there are better words that can be used when speaking with him.
What you need to do when talking to your own dad, or about someone else’s dad, is to use the more respectful version in this next section.
In order to be more respectful and polite when talking about dads, you add on the both the polite お (o) prefex and also the respectful さん (san) suffix .
The end result is the word お父さん (otou san) which you will notice has a different pronunciation than the first word that we went over.
The 父 part has changed from ちち (chichi) to とう (tou).
The word お父さん is by far the most common word used for dad in Japanese.
The interesting thing is that even though you can technically use 父 when talking about your own dad to other people, it is actually more common for Japanese people to use お父さん since the society is one that emphasizes respect towards people who are older than you.
On the other hand, when Japanese kids talk directly to their dad, they generally use a form that is somewhere in between these two extremes and either drop the polite お to just say 父さん (tou san) when speaking to their fathers, or if they are really young, they might use the endearing 父ちゃん (tou chan) which swaps out the ending name suffix .
If you’re ever not sure what to use, then it’s perfectly fine to just stick with the お父さん version for all purposes.
We’ve covered the most common, and probably most important words for dad when speaking Japanese, but there are still others that you might run into when reading or listening to native materials.
I figured that I would cover them here so that you can become familiar with them in case you encounter them sometime in the future.
The first word is 親父 (oyaji) and it’s similar to calling your dad “pops” when speaking to him or about him. Obviously, this is not as respectful as the earlier word, but I hear it a lot when watching anime so it’s definitely worth learning.
What’s interesting is that this word is created by combining the kanji for parent 親 (oya) with the kanji for dad 父.
Here’s where things get even more interesting: we can flip these two kanji and get yet another word for father!
This time the word is 父親 (chichi oya) which just translates as “father” in English and is a little more respectful than the first word we went over in this section.
What’s also interesting to note is that the reading for 父 changed from じ (ji) in the first word to ちち in this second one, even thought the other kanji’s reading remained constant.
Kanji like these, where there are two words and the other difference is that the kanji are flipped, are the ones that I mess up the most often. Sometimes I glance over what I’m reading and mistake one word for another.
For example, 日本 (nihon) for Japan and 本日 (honjitsu) for today trip me up unless I’m paying close attention.
Thankfully both 親父 and 父親 mean the same thing! Dear old dad!
There are two final words that I wanted to go over for your old man, and they are both on opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to their usage.
The first one is パパ (papa) which is just a loan word taken directly from English and means “papa.”
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this word is generally only used by young Japanese children. Kids that are around the five-year-old mark or so.
This word is incredibly “familiar” in the sense that you would only ever use it with your own dad and never someone else’s.
The other Japanese word that I wanted to share is 父上 (chichi ue). This word, like many others in today’s lesson, means father in Japanese, but there are a couple of things to note about it.
The first is that it really only gets used in samurai films and anime where someone’s father has a very high social position, such as a king or the lord of a province.
The other thing is that this word falls into the “polite” category, but isn’t really a word that gets used in today’s Japan. If you do run into this one, it will probably be while watching a show.
Now you know all about dads in Japanese. Well, you at least know the words about them.
To be honest, I was quite shocked every time I would learn a new word for father in Japanese since we only have a few of them in English.
I guess it’s just one of those cultural differences where one language has a few words for something, and the other one actually has a lot.
Have you heard any other words for dad? Let me know by leaving a comment down below!
Further Resources for Learning Japanese:
This was a great explanation. Thank you so much.
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How do you say this in Japanese? How do you say Daddy in Japanese? XD I really need a tutor for this language..
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