I consider myself very familiar with the Japanese culture
I consider myself very familiar with the Japanese culture
It's just scientific fact that they love being slaves to corporations unlike us, the proudly independent and individualistic Westerners 
Source: I was on a Discord with a Japanese dude
You're viewing a single thread.
but a Japanese in the group objected
This phrasing kinda has similar vibes to someone insistently calling trans people “the transgenders.” It’s such a weird, petty way to signal bigotry and ignorance.
I thought so too, but then I sort of realised that it's pretty normal "a german, a frenchman and a swede walks into a bar" doesn't sound weird. Nor does "I met an american yesterday, they were very loud".
"A japanese" still looks weird and signals weirdo energy, but it shouldn't. I wonder why?That’s a fair point!
I think it could be the -ese at the end. “A chinese” has the same weird vibe whereas “a korean” sounds better, so I don’t think it’s (necessarily) the history of bigotry against East Asians that makes it sound off.
To me, the -ese ending kinda implies that the speaker is referencing a group. Words ending in -ese seem to lean more plural by default and using them to refer to singular individuals feels off, at least in my opinion. English is a very strange language though and I could very easily be wrong.
Yeah I think it's the -ese too. I thought it was wrong to use for a person in singular, but apparently not for all nationalities. English is all vibes.
Permanently Deleted
You also can't pluralize -ese words without adding "people", while you can make the other ones plural with just an "s". Very inconvenient. English is weird.
well I remember my grandma saying similar things but shortening Japanese to 3 letters... my grandpa was in WW2 and she never let go of that hatred
This is also exactly the way someone who speaks japanese natively would talk in english as it’s a direct translation.
It's less that it's a direct translation and more that a natively Japanese person isn't likely to be aware of the vaguely racist vibes "a Japanese" has to a native English speaker
There is no word that means just "Japanese" in Japanese. 日本人 specifically means Japanese person and is just the words Japan and person smashed together