hi all. I have some Japanese friends who I occasionally speak Japanese with. A mutual I've found out uses they/them pronouns in English, and I want to correctly gender them when speaking Japanese.

I know あいつ/こいつ but I'm not sure if it's used by enbies in Japanese. meanwhile using XXX-san/XXX exclusively without pronouns seems clunky? I know you can get away with both using name and also omitting pronouns more easily than English e.g. "XXX-san来ましたか?" "はい、来ました" so I'm using that for now.

Sorry this question is meandering and I'm second guessing myself. Hope someone can cast some light

  • PointAndClique [they/them]
    ·
    6 months ago

    It works fine for native speakers. Watch a movie in Japanese and think about how rarely if ever they say かれ or かのじょ

    Yeah, I think I'll go with that and avoid using pronouns til I get a clear steer from them themselves when I see them next week. They are not a Japanese native speaker either, so I wanted to come moderately prepared rather than bombard them with grammar questions.