The Difference Between Formal And Casual
“At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.” – George Carlin
Before you get started, I wanted to quickly explain the difference between formal and informal/casual speech. Depending on your native language, Japanese formal/informal language may or may not be a lot different from what you’re used to. In English, formal and informal language isn’t as black and white. I’d say in English, most people tend to favor casual speech over formal speech (though of course I can’t speak for everyone).
In Japanese, there are many levels of formality in the language. Up until now, you’ve learned one of those (the pretty neutral, slightly formal, polite speech), and now you’re going to learn casual. Around “formal” and “casual” though are other levels. Simply put, there’s really informal language (which you won’t be learning on TextFugu, sorry!) and there’s an even more formal level above what you’ve already learned. If I put it less simply, there’s a bunch more levels in there that most Japanese people don’t even understand. For the sake of your sanity, though, let’s just pretend there’s three levels (all of which you’ll eventually learn about). They are:
Casual: What you’re about to learn. Best used with friends / people you’re familiar with (and equal level of seniority, age, etc).
Neutral/Formal: What you’ve been learning up until now. This is the “safe” level of politeness, and can pretty much be used in any situation. If you’re not sure what to use, go for neutral formal!
Sonkeigo (Extra Formal): This is the tough one – you’d use this with your boss, people of higher rank than you, and generally anyone you need to be super polite with. If you’re working with customers in Japan, too, you’d certainly want to know how to use keigo so your customers feel like they’re being treated well. There are a lot of crazy rules that come with sonkeigo – many Japanese have trouble with this level, and some of the best selling self-help books are to teach people how to speak properly (showing how hard this really can be). We’ll save this level of politeness for when you’re more advanced.
To sum it up, though, I’d generally just advise you use neutral/formal form if you aren’t sure either way. Still, casual speech is just as important (if not a little more important) than neutral/formal, so we’re going to start learning it now. On top of that, casual grammar opens up a ton of new grammar options you can learn. Let’s get started!