Yale Anime Society: 100 Most Essential Words in Anime
Most Japanese classes focus on formal, "proper" language and tend to discourage colloquialisms. This is for good reason. The "polite" forms in Japanese are necessary in learning grammar and word order, especially for beginners where more plain forms of the language can be confusing. Intellectually I knew this, but I still had a problem. For example, my first attempt at manga had me reading Mitsuru Adachi's "Short Program". I kept finding that everyone in the manga was named "omae". A little while later, I found out that "omae" is one of several informal ways of saying "you."Prior to that, my only word for "you" was "anata." See what I mean now? So about a year ago I thought about making a list of similar phrases...Unfortunately I didn't move fast enough. Reproduced is the Yale Anime Society's Page of 100 Most Essential Words in Anime in all its glory.
