What is the meaning of "boku wa vs boku no watashi wa vs watashi no, etc"? - Question about Japanese (2024)

Quality Point(s): 6

Answer: 17

Like: 11

Roughly speaking, "watashi wa" is "I", "watashi no" is "my (/mine)".

Japanese has a huge variety of personal pronouns, words for "I" (and "you"). "boku" and "watashi" are two of them. We choose one of them, depending on a situation. We (both gender) should use "watashi" in a formal situation.
●[1st-person pronouns]
･https://youtu.be/Q2Y7ET-TyCs
･https://youtu.be/UTDna6oWA3g
･https://youtu.be/dFcyaWgGpJM
･https://manga.tokyo/columns/lost-in-honyaku/wat...
･https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns

●[fundamental information about Japanese language for learners]
･http://a1.marugotoweb.jp/intro_to_jp.php?p=g
●[Japanese particles]
･https://8020japanese.com/japanese-sentence-stru...
(↑Sentence structure)
･http://kwhazit.ucoz.net/ranma/g_part.html#wa1
･http://kwhazit.ucoz.net/ranma/g_part.html#no
･https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_particles (List)

oh I was talking about the word "desu" at the end of the sentence!

I'll bookmark that though

Ah... "desu" is kinda hard to explain in English... In grammatical terms, it is called "copula".
Roughly speaking, "A am/are/is C" sentences are "A wa C desu".

･http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/po...
･http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/fo...
･http://kwhazit.ucoz.net/ranma/g_verb.html#copula (copula)

so desu is used for politeness.. we don't have that in English obviously. if I just said "A is C", would that be impolite?

watashi wa Nathan
for example

@nate_costin well it’d be like saying “I, Nathan.” Compared to “I am Nathan.”
Not so much impolite as sounding like a caveman 😂

that's what i was going for lol thanks for clarifying

Hmmm...
e.g. "I am a student."
"watashi, gakusei": "I, student" Sound like a caveman.
"watashi wa gakusei": OK (a bit rough, though).
"watashi wa gakusei desu": Natural. I clearly understand the sentence is completed when I hear this.
"watashi wa gakusei deshita": "I was a student." "deshita" is a past tense version of "desu".

boku wa means like.. "I'm.."
boku no means like.. "mine"