■ the first person singular

Japanese has dozens of words for "I," but most are reserved for particular dialects, occupations or time periods. Still, in everyday conversation at least six words are commonly heard. (See top table below.)

Many of the words are variations or shortenings of the common わたし /watashi/.

Quite a few also mean "you," a fact which may seem puzzling at first. When the aspect of social status is taken into account for the choice of pronoun, it becomes less perplexing why, for example, a word used by men to refer to themselves might come to be used by women to also refer to men. (A modern example of this is 僕 /boku/.)

Using one's own name instead of a pronoun is not common, but it is not unheard of.

The table below is a general list of pronouns with links planned to individual pages for more details. The most common are given at top after which they are listed in 五十音図 (Japanese) order.