Remake of Tobira L2-2 2024 by

Pamela

DickinsonJapanese — 2022-09-15 18:55:30 UTC

When Taki went to find Mitsuha, his friends Fujii and Okudera decided to tag along with him in order to keep Taki safe. Something that was very evident throughout this trip was the fact that Taki would refer to Okudera as 「先輩」 and use the word 「はい」 when he needed to agree/confirm her claims. However, whenever he spoke with his other friend Fujii, Taki would call him by his name and reply with 「うん」 instead of 「はい」. This is a clear example of how Taki used 丁寧 with Okudera, but くだけた with Fujii, and as we know his usage of speech levels is proper due to his status in relation with his friends. From Taki's perspective, since Okudera is older, 丁寧 must be used at all times in order to show respect to the co-worker who the looks up to. But, because Taki and Fujii hold the same student status and age, informal speech would be the proper way for Taki to address his friend.

Molly

2024-10-06 23:04:01 UTC

The first time I casual speech was very apparent to me was when Mitsuha was talking with her friends after class. At one point in their conversation, their sentences were pretty short such as (うそ!) and it was immediately apparent to me that they were not using ます/です form, since they are the same age and are close friends.

Molly

2024-10-06 23:11:06 UTC

The most obvious difference between male and female speech was the first time Mitsuha woke up in Taki’s body. She talks to his friends and uses 私 to refer to herself, which confuses Taki’s friends, as it is feminine and more formal than what he usually uses. She tries using ぼく, but he prefers to use おれ with his friends. She’s not used to this because women do not typically use these terms to talk about themselves. I also noticed that when she woke up in his body, she used すみません to greet Taki’s father in the morning, which he seemed confused about. He may have been confused by the formality (like how the American south is known for addressing people more politely compared to the north, maybe something similar is in Japan) but I wondered if it was more common for boys to use other words or ways of getting someone’s attention.

Molly

2024-10-06 23:19:06 UTC

During their trip, Okudera uses contracted form when talking to Taki. He addresses her more formally because she is older than him, but she uses casual speech because he is younger. 目黒先生 does the same: we address her with polite ます/です form, but she can use casual speech with us because she is on a higher level than we are. She can also use ちゃった/じゃった to shorten her sentences for the same reason. Okudera is the same in the film, she uses this and other casual ways of speaking to talk to Taki because she doesn’t have to be polite to someone younger than her.

Molly

2024-10-06 23:22:11 UTC

It was a little hard to find inversion in the movie, but I do remember before the opening song Taki and Mitsuha end their sentences with 「きみだ」(forgive me if that’s not the exact phrase). Usually the subject would go at the beginning of the sentence, but here it is at the end. This works because the だ is a sentence ender like です.

スピーチレベル例

Bluecreeper722 — 2024-10-07 00:43:18 UTC

When Mitsuha greets Tessie and Sayachin. They first greet each other just by saying 「おはよう」which is already informal but then when they start arguing and Mitsuha comments on it「あなたたち、なかよいなあ」「よくないわ」, short form informal speech is used.

男性と女性の話し方例

Bluecreeper722 — 2024-10-07 00:43:22 UTC

One example of male speech in the film which I found interesting was when Taki (as Mitsuha) and Tessie come up with the plan to save the town. After using 「私」in the same scene to refer to himself alone, Taki (as Mitsuha) and Tessie say 「だろうぜ、おれたちで」which uses おれ, a masculine pronoun and ぜ, a masculine ending. Now I do not know if they both said this to lean into the fact that Taki is currently in Mitsuha's body, or if it is the case that when a male and female say 'we' together a more masculine pronoun is used rather than a feminine one.

文末の省略例

Bluecreeper722 — 2024-10-07 00:43:29 UTC

One form of omitting sentence ending that I heard a lot in the movie was just using し in the way of providing reasons. When Mitsuha and Sayachin were talking about Itomori they kept listing reasons for why they wanted to get out of the town or why it was boring, ending each reason with し but not explicitly saying they want to move or leave.

文の倒置例

Bluecreeper722 — 2024-10-07 00:43:30 UTC

When in the hotel lobby Fujiii and Okudera make some conversation about Taki. They both use short examples of sentence inversion here. First Fujiii asks her 「どう思います、あいつの話」, what she thinks about Taki's story, not only does he first ask the question then specify (the example of sentence inversion) but he also refers to Taki informally using male speech like 「あいつ」. Okudera then also uses a sort of sentence inversion, first saying that she liked Taki, specifying her and adding reasons such as him being cute after.「好きだったんだ、私」。

男女の話方の違い例

2024-10-07 01:23:48 UTC

One striking example about masculine v. feminine speech happens around 20 minutes into the movie, when Taki (as Mitsuha) is having to act normal and uses the 私 to describe themself. This confuses Taki's friends, who knows Taki does not use this pronoun. Mitsuha tries to fix this by saying various other pronouns until they reach おれ。Something that was interesting in which pronouns they attempted was that they started with the more polite, typically feminine pronouns (私、わたくし） before gradually trying pronouns that have more masculine emphasis（僕, then おれ）. Additionally, in this scene, you can hear one of the friends using ぜ at the end of a sentence, which typically is said to by masculine people.

文末の省略例

2024-10-07 01:45:56 UTC

(41:36) Talking to himself after his date, Taki omits particles and contracts parts of his sentence (例：何言ってんだ）. As said in class, typically when talking to oneself, sentences are able to be contracted to speed up self-communication.

Additionally, shortly after when Mitsuha is on the phone, she uses contracted form in her sentences for casual speaking (テッシか、後でね）and her friend says やっぱ, indicating quicker and more casual talking.

文の倒置例

2024-10-07 03:05:27 UTC

When Mitsuha is explaining her plan to broadcast the meteor warning (from the school to her town), she explains that「この辺りは被害範囲の外だから、避難場所もここの校庭にすればいい」。In English, she is saying "This area is outside the affected range, so if we used the schoolyard as an evacuation site, it would be good". Instead of the typical "result because reason" that one might find in Japanese, here we have the reason before the result, thus an inversion.

スピーチレベル

2024-10-07 03:13:21 UTC

When Mitsuha (actually Taki) is watching the news, the news reporter is using polite speech when addressing viewers; usages of です・ます are heard without contractions.

Additionally, when Mitsuha goes to Tokyo and tries to use their phone, the automated call talks uses keigo 「いらっしゃる」which I thought was interesting, but made sense considering Mitsuha is a patron of this cell phone service.

Matthew

barnam — 2024-10-07 05:06:20 UTC

The most notable usage of masculine vs feminine speech was when Mitsuha (in Taki's body) was speaking with his friends and used the pronoun 私. This confused his friends, a "Taki" using a feminine pronoun seemed very out of character for his usual masculinity. "Taki" then tries keigo (わたくし）which was interesting to me, as that indicates that politness is more feminine. "Taki" then tries ぼくand おれ, which Taki's friends seemed more receptive to. I also saw several instances of Tessie using ざ or ぞ at the end of his sentences.

Matthew

barnam — 2024-10-07 05:14:24 UTC

When "Mitsuha" is speaking to the mayor, he says ”何を言っているんだ、おまえは？” This is an inversion of the typical sentence structure, where the subject usually comes first.

Matthew

barnam — 2024-10-07 05:22:13 UTC

When Mitsuha and Taki try and call each other (and it doesn't work because of the different times), the automated message addresses the user in polite keigo speech.

The teacher at the beginning of the movie notibly didn't really use です or ます because she is of a higher position than her students.

Matthew

barnam — 2024-10-07 05:40:27 UTC

During the scene when "Taki" is serving at a restaurant to the men who claimed they found a toothpick in their pizza, they omitted sentence endings and used contracted form (くちゃったあぶないよね）. They do this to sound very casual and unsavory.

Gendered Speech

2024-10-07 13:55:00 UTC

In the scene where Mitsuha woke up in Taki's body, she uses more feminine expressions almost immediately such as うわー. When Taki's friends go to talk to him in this state, they use traditionally masculine sentence enders such as ぜ. Said friend being very thrown off when "Taki" refers to him with the 〜くん suffix.

Speech Formality

2024-10-07 14:02:34 UTC

When we see the first scene of Taki working in the restaurant, the customers tend to use casual language when addressing the servers while the waiters make a point to show deference to the customers. This is a high class restaurant after all, deference must be showed to their customers. His manager notably uses keigo when addressing the customers causing problems in an attempt to fully show respect and level of importance relative to one another. In the service industry, the customer must be shown the highest respect, the servers less so as shown by the visitors still using casual language while she uses keigo

Sentence Casualness

2024-10-07 14:06:54 UTC

Whenever we see Mitsuha or Taki communicating with their peers or family, they use short form and make sure to end sentences that might otherwise end with ですね into a simple ね. Other expressions such as だろ and の are also used as common sentence enders in this context.

Samuel

2024-10-07 21:31:07 UTC

Starting at 9:40, Mitsuha starts talking to her friends. They use short form informal speech in this scene. For instance, one girl uses って and Mitsuha replies with "うそ. 本当!" This let me know that they were speaking informally, as って is a shorter version of patterns like 言っていました and うそ. 本当 lacks です。

Samuel

2024-10-07 21:38:10 UTC

At 21:25, Mitsuha is in Taki's body and speaking with his friends, and she uses the feminine pronoun 私, then the Keigo 私くし, then the masculine 僕, and finally the masculine 俺. His friends are confused as to why Taki is using feminine pronouns and are weirded out until Mitsuha correctly uses 俺. This shows that feminine speech is more formal than masculine speech in Japan, and her immediate first switch to Keigo was also interesting, as these could have been Taki's senpai.

Samuel

2024-10-07 21:46:21 UTC

Starting at 42:26, when Mitsuha's friends are talking, they end sentences with わ、ぜ、な, which shows faster talking due to dropping endings. One of her friends also says "髪が” to which Mitsuha replies ”やっぱ.” These also drop endings for expressions.

Samuel

2024-10-07 21:54:06 UTC

At 53:50, Miki states "好きだったんだ私” which is in the reverse format, as the particle is not first.

Ethan

2024-10-08 04:10:43 UTC

In one of the first sentences she says that she wakes up crying. then states 「そいうことがある」as a reference to the original idea she just says. Oftentimes when an inversion in ideas takes place it sounds like 「こんなこと」「そんあこと」are used to reference the sentence being added on to. Phrases such as 「お前は」were occasionally added to the end of sentences.

Ethan

2024-10-08 05:13:27 UTC

The feminine endings 「や、わ」that Mitsuha uses when she is exploring Tokyo in Taki's body. Mitsuha's grandmother does not appear to use a lot of feminine speech. Mitsuha uses "Atashi" and confuses Taki's friends until eventually she switches to 「おれ」. Feminine and masculine speech appear to be used in situations between friends, and I can not recall an instance of an elder woman using gendered language.

Ethan

2024-10-08 05:18:39 UTC

In the restaurant Mitsuha uses formal speech when speaking to her senpai and servers speak with keigo to customers. The levels of respectful speech are very clear in matters of age and employment. When Taki is on a date with his senpai he uses ～です体, because even though they are in a less formal setting, she is still older and therefore must be addressed with respect.

Ethan

2024-10-08 05:23:38 UTC

Taki writes a note to himself on a map stating 「このへん？」because he is addressing himself and just making labels for his own benefit he does not need to use complete sentences. Both characters do not use 「だ」to end sentences for internal dialogue. Contracted form is also used in informal settings and in the restaurant 「てしまうー＞ちゃった」is used by the customer.