The Many Ways To Say “I”
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” - Lao-tzu
First of all, we’re going to take a look at the many different ways to say the word “I.” Referring to yourself in Japanese is a bit tricky (we’ll talk about this in a moment). You have to humble yourself and elevate people around you. Depending on which “I” you use, you can be saying all kinds of different things (or implying them, at least). You’ll understand when you take a look at these different “I” words.
Oh, and you don’t have to learn them all, but you should probably take note of them in your language log. You won’t be using all of them for a while (just one or two, for the most part), but it is good to know of all of them, at least. I’ll make sure to note which you should learn below, too.
わたし（私）
This is what you’ll be using most of the time, so remember this one well. This is the “neutral / standard” way to say “I” – it’s polite, it’s not rude, but it’s also not overly polite either. The perfect in-between-fit-all-situations self identifier.
わたくし（私）
If you think わたくし sounds similar to わたし, then you’re on the right track. わたくし is just a more formal way to say わたし, and is used in very formal situations for males, and normalish / formal situations for females. Women can still use (and probably should use) わたし most of the time, though, so don’t pay this one too much attention. The kanji for this one is also 私. Confusing, right? But, this shows us that these two words are basically the same, and just the way you say it differs, depending on how crazy polite you want to get.
あたし
Once again, notice anything familiar? あたし is just like わたし, except you’re missing a “w.” あたし is very feminine, and probably shouldn’t be used by men. For women, you still probably shouldn’t use it (at least right now), until you feel more comfortable with the Japanese language. If you use it wrong, then you’ll sound like a little three year old girl… or just plain weird.
ぼく（僕）
This one is slightly masculine, though is sometimes used by tomboy girls. You’ll hear guys (especially younger guys) using ぼく fairly often. We won’t focus on this one too much as we continue on (since both girls and guys use TextFugu), so even though it’s a good one to remember, there won’t be a ton of opportunity to practice it here (at least right now).
おれ（俺）
This one is very informal and can sometimes be considered vulgar. Primarily used by men, and used in informal situations (i.e. when you’re around friends that you don’t need to worry about offending).
じぶん（自分）
The last one is one you’ll almost never hear nowadays. It’s very masculine and sounds very militaristic. We won’t have any need to use じぶん in TextFugu (though there’s another “vocabularyish” word that’s basically the same thing, but used a bit differently to mean “self” that we will use. That’s different, though).
To sum things up, you basically only need to learn わたし before moving on (and possibly ぼく, if you have the right set of chromosomes). Time to learn how to refer to other people, now.