People Will Be Interested In Your Name

Understanding who others are and telling them about who you are important tasks when learning your language. But the basics are not that hard. After I had lived in Japan for a short while, I was thinking about making cards with answers to the most frequently asked Japanese questions. Those weren’t even fun to answer any more, because they were always the same questions and the same answers.

The questions people asked me in Japanese included, “Where are you from”? “How long have you lived in Japan”? “How old are you”? There was a list of others that people asked depending on the asker and the setting we were in, but those were the main ones.

Who are you, and what do you think people from other cultures will ask you? One friend who studied in America said she was often asked a variety of questions similar to the kinds I was asked. For example, “Is Japanese difficult”? “Are there a lot of earthquakes”? “How many hours a day do Japanese people work”?

Since people often start by telling each other their names, let’s start there, too. People who are not familiar with the sound of Japanese names will probably not understand yours the first time you tell them. Though your name and Japanese names in general may be normal to you, they are not familiar to many other people. They may have to ask you to repeat yours several times.

One way you can make it easier for them is to shorten your name. For example, if your name is Yukiko, ask them to please call you Yuki for short.

Westerners are curious about kanji, or Chinese characters. They might want to know how you write your name in kanji. They will be interested to see you write your name on a piece of paper.

They will also be interested in how you would write their names. You will have to explain how kanji work. They don’t understand that one character has several different pronunciations. Just try your best, and try to write a kanji even just for a shortened version of their name. For example, if their first name is Amy, try 笑美, and explain that it means beautiful smile. If their name is too difficult to figure out, write it in katakana or hiragana for them.

People you meet will likely ask about the order of your name. Which comes first, your family name, or your given name? Family names will be a curiosity for them, too. They may ask what yours means, if you got it from your father’s side of the family, and if it is a common name in Japan.

Names are fascinating. Yours is, too. People will be curious about yours and what it means to you.