のです
Mixing direct and distal styles - How to Japanese - December 2024
This is How to Japanese, a monthly newsletter with something about Japan/Japanese and a dash of いろいろ.
日本・日本語： のです
This month I’d like to take you on a tour of a piece of writing that combines two topics I’ve written about previously. In December 2022, I wrote about 書き言葉 (kakikotoba, written language) and took a look at the elements of written Japanese in a Mainichi Shimbun editorial that give it the qualities of serious written Japanese: It uses formal phrasing and shorter 常体 (jōtai, direct style) constructions to create a more declarative effect. In August 2023, I wrote about のだ (no da), the little bit of language that comes at the end of clauses and allows Japanese speakers or writers to mark assertions, explanations, and emphasis.
Today, I’d like to look at an almost perfect intersection of these two ideas that I came across in Kakuta Mitsuyo’s book しあわせのねだん (Shiawase no nedan, The Price of Happiness).
I mentioned her book on the podcast in September this year. I discovered this set of essays at the 読書カフェ (dokusho kafe, reading cafe) near my house and knew I needed my own copy after flipping through it. Each entry in the book is just a few short pages. She writes about the cost of different things in her life, things like her health exam (which cost nothing), an electronic dictionary, and a huge range of other items. Other than the titles, which are just the name of the item and its price, she’s never very explicit about the happiness that these things bring her; it’s delicately executed.
In one essay titled 理想的中身 (risōteki nakami, Ideal Content) she writes about her bad habit of never keeping enough cash on hand and how it affected a trip to the beach with her boyfriend. Toward the end of the essay, we learn that the titular “ideal content” to always have on hand is 1,000 yen for each year you’ve lived; thus, 40,000 yen for Kakuta.
Here are the first three (very short) paragraphs of that essay, which I’ll first present without translation. I have a translation at the bottom of the newsletter, but if possible, see if you can struggle through these few sentences. In my newsletters and blog posts, I’m always most concerned with this question: How is the Japanese working? English translation often gets in the way of understanding the answer to that question.
Here we go:
私は財布にお金を入れない。いや、入れるのだが、入れる額が非常に少ない。
カードをたくさん持っていて現金を持ち歩かない、という主義でもない。ただ、入れ忘れるのだ。
2000円、3000円程度しか財布に入れずに歩いていることがしょっちゅうある。そんなに少額で困ることはないのか？とお思いでしょう。困ることは多々あるのです。 (62)
We can see from the very first paragraph that this is in 常体—the standard style for most writing including academic and business writing as well as nonfiction essays like Kakuta’s collection—because there are no です・ます (desu/masu) constructions. Or are there? If you look at the third paragraph, the final two sentences end with でしょう (deshō) and です (desu). What’s going on here? Are we dealing with 常体 writing or not?
We are, but there’s a switch that happens at the end. In the first paragraph, Kakuta sets up the problem: She has very little money in her wallet. In the second, she explains herself: She has little money in her wallet due to the fact that she forgets. In the third, she first expands on this by detailing exactly how little money she has in her wallet (2,000-3,000 yen) before posing a question to the reader. This is the key. These last two sentences are written as somewhat of a direct exchange with the reader.
We can see the question signaled with a question mark, but there are no quotations. Kakuta keeps the question right in there with the rest of the sentence and marks it as a question with a question mark and this tag: Xとお思いでしょう (X to o-omoi deshō, You must think/wonder X).
The particle と (to) is a standard quotation particle, which is preceded by the content of the question (そんなに少額で困ることはないのか？) and followed by the verb (お思いでしょう).
This is when we start to realize why there’s a switch from 常体 to 敬体 (keitai, distal style): Because Kakuta is either addressing the reader or writing with the reader more consciously in mind, she switches to a more polite form, which in this case is a keigo form of 思います. This is お (o), a prefix marking it as honorific + 思い (omoi), the stem of the verb + でしょう (deshō), the tentative form of です. She’s telling the reader more directly, You must/likely/probably think X, which in this case is the question そんなに少額で困ることはないのか？ (Sonna ni shōgaku de komaru koto ha nai no ka?, Don’t you run into problems with an amount of money that small?).
This is followed immediately by the answer to this question, which is also in distal form because it too addresses the reader more directly: 困ることは多々あるのです (Komaru koto wa tata aru no desu, I do in fact run into very many problems).
This is the first connection with my past newsletter: Japanese writers most frequently use direct style with だ・である (da/de aru) forms, but they can opt to use distal style for a more casual spoken tone or to directly address the reader. Watch for how writers use these forms.
The other connection with my newsletter is the のだ (no da), which I called one of the most difficult aspects of the language to learn how to use. Kakuta uses it three times, twice in direct style and once in distal style:
入れるのだが (ireru no da ga)
ただ、入れ忘れるのだ (irewasureru no da)
困ることは多々あるのです (komaru koto wa tata aru no desu)
As I noted in my previous newsletter, you could easily write these sentences without the のだ and still convey the fundamental meaning. So what role is it playing here?
First, let’s think about the commonalities of these instances. The second and third examples both come at the end of sentences and at the end of paragraphs. Here Kakuta is using it to mark emphasis. It’s almost a sense of italics, something extra-textual in English and nearly extra-textual in Japanese; clearly textual because it’s in there, but cutting it would not change the underlying message.
The first instance comes at a junction in the sentence, right next to a literal conjunction. Here she’s using it to contrast the verbs in the first two sentences. In the sentence immediately before she says 入れない (irenai, I don’t put [money in my wallet]), only to go on and contradict this by saying 入れる (I do put [money in my wallet]), and to qualify and emphasize that assertion, she adds the のだが. It’s a nice little linguistic deflection that gives the writing momentum going into the explanation: 入れる額が非常に少ない (ireru gaku ga hijō ni sukunai, the amount I put in is incredibly small).
So the English may have a textual solution rather than something like italics. For example, there’s a clear but subtle distinction between “I put money in my wallet, but…” and “I do put money in my wallet, but…” How would you explain the difference between these? As a native English speaker, it does feel difficult!
This is the same with the final sentence. These two sentences are not the same, but they are very close:
I run into many problems.
I do run into many problems.
One of my Japanese instructors once told my class that it isn’t an ironclad rule to use のだ・のです in the final sentence of Japanese writing, but at the same time it’s also often correct. This is usually the location where you are marking an assertion, emphasizing something, clarifying the critical argument you’re making. Or at least it should be if you’re doing Japanese writing effectively.
Keep an eye out for when writers are using it, and if you can remember, try to pause and consider what they’re trying to accomplish. The same is true for the difference between 常体 and 敬体 styles. This is the first step to being able to incorporate it in your own writing.
Here’s my translation of the paragraphs above:
I don’t keep money in my wallet. Actually, I do keep money there, but the amount is incredibly small.
I’m not one of those people who goes around with a ton of credit cards and no cash. I just…forget.
I’m often out and about with no more than two or three thousand yen in my wallet. You might wonder, Hasn’t that caused you any problems? The answer is yes, it’s caused lots of problems.
いろいろ
Check out the podcast over on the blog for an audio version of this newsletter. I include a link to the Kakuta Mitsuyo essay from the UR Journal. I also break down a great Japanese blog review of the drinkable mayonnaise that Lawson is selling right now (also linked on the blog), which has an interesting shift between 常体 and 敬体 over the course of the post.
The new Jay Rubin translation of Murakami Haruki’s Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is also out! (Also mentioned on the podcast.) I’ve started reading and am a few chapters in but will need a little longer to gather my thoughts. I will say that it’s definitely worth reading. Rubin nails the frenetic tone of the narrator’s racing thoughts in the first chapter. I’m very curious to see what decisions he makes. So far “INKlings” have become “Murks,” but Semiotec and Calcutec remain the same. You can expect a stand-alone podcast at some point in the future, but it’s really a matter of when. I might need a month or two.