Politeness Levels
Politeness levels have their root in an ancient Japanese tradition of absolute obedience and conformity, a social caste system, and complete respect for arbitrary hierarchical authority, which many American companies believe will be very helpful when applied as managerial techniques. They're right, of course, but no one is very happy about it.
Depending on who you are speaking to, your politeness level will be very different. The correct level of politeness depends on the age of the speaker, age of the person being spoken to, astrological sign, blood type, sex, whether they are Grass or Rock Pokémon type, color of pants, and so on. For a taste of politeness levels in action, see the example below.
Japanese Teacher: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Good morning.
Japanese Classmates: *gasps of horror and shock*
The above would most likely be followed by violent retching. The bottom line is that politeness levels are completely beyond your understanding, so don't even try. Just resign yourself to talking like a little girl for the rest of your life and hope to God that no one beats you up.
Japanese Teacher: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Good morning.
Japanese Classmates: *gasps of horror and shock*
The above would most likely be followed by violent retching. The bottom line is that politeness levels are completely beyond your understanding, so don't even try. Just resign yourself to talking like a little girl for the rest of your life and hope to God that no one beats you up.
Grammatical Structure
The Japanese have what could be called an "interesting" grammatical structure, but could also be called "confusing", "random", "bogus" or "evil". To truly understand this, let's examine the differences between Japanese and English grammar.
English sentence: Jane went to the school.Same sentence in Japanese: School Jane To Went Monkey Apple Carbeurator.
Japanese grammar is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. What's more, the Japanese also do not have any words for "me", "them", "him, or "her" that anyone could use without being incredibly insulting (the Japanese word for "you", for example, when written in Kanji, translates to "I hope an elephant tramples your face"). Because of this, the sentence "He just killed her!" and "I just killed her!" sound exactly the same, meaning that most people in Japan have no idea what is going on around them at any given moment. You are supposed to figure these things out from the "context", which is a German word meaning "you're screwed".
(to be continued)
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