History Main / ThirdPersonPerson

The so-called "third person" in a Japanese (or East Asian for that matter) sense isn't the same as using "he" or "she" to talk about oneself, however. In fact, the "third person" for Japanese people stops at only using one's own name to substitute [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns first-person pronouns]] (''watashi'', ''ore'', ''boku'', etc.). This may sound strange to Western ears, but anyone who does this still very much speaks in some sort of playful, childlike ''first person'', '''not''' the actual third person that Westerners would think of. Nobody actually refers to themself as ''kare'' ("he"), ''kanojo'' ("she"), ''koitsu''/''soitsu''/''aitsu'' / ''kono''/''sono''/''ano hito'' ("they") (in fact, the so-called third-person pronouns in general aren't even commonly used to begin with, given Japanese people's value on people's names which makes it rude and crass to overuse these words). A misunderstanding of this phenomenon may cause some amateur [[FanTranslation fan translators]] to jump all over the place, using Western-style third-person speak in some places, while going back to first-person speak in others. The only feasible solutions to this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability translation predicament]] is to simply substitute every instance of "I" and "me" with the character's name and try to conform to European grammars with "is", "was", "has" and whatnot (which is of course actually infeasible because it will make the translation awkward to read and give the reader a false impression of a culture they're ignorant about), or just stick with "I" and "me", because at the end of the day, some things just gotta be LostInTranslation. Using names as pronoun substitue also applies to the second person, since using second person pronouns may appear crass. A conversation where characters only use their own and each other's names may sound awkward if translated literally, therefore substituting those names with "I/me" and "you" is recommended.

The so-called "third person" in a Japanese (or East Asian for that matter) sense isn't the same as using "he" or "she" to talk about oneself, however. In fact, the "third person" for Japanese people stops at only using one's own name to substitute [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns first-person pronouns]] (''watashi'', ''ore'', ''boku'', etc.). This may sound strange to Western ears, but anyone who does this still very much speaks in some sort of playful, childlike ''first person'', '''not''' the actual third person that Westerners would think of. Nobody actually refers to themself as ''kare'' ("he"), ''kanojo'' ("she"), ''koitsu''/''soitsu''/''aitsu'' / ''kono''/''sono''/''ano hito'' ("they") (in fact, the so-called third-person pronouns in general aren't even commonly used to begin with, given Japanese people's value on people's names which makes it rude and crass to overuse these words). A misunderstanding of this phenomenon may cause some amateur [[FanTranslation fan translators]] to jump all over the place, using Western-style third-person speak in some places, while going back to first-person speak in others. The only feasible solutions to this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability translation predicament]] is to simply substitute every instance of "I" and "me" with the character's name and try to conform to European grammars with "is", "was", "has" and whatnot (which is of course actually infeasible because it will make the translation awkward to read and give the reader a false impression of a culture they're ignorant about), or just stick with "I" and "me", because at the end of the day, some things just gotta be LostInTranslation.

* Denis King of ''Radio/HelloCheeky'' would do this whenever he had just told a [[IncrediblyLamePun terrible]], ''[[StylisticSuck terrible]]'' joke. Usually the statement would go along the lines of "How does he think of them?" or "He's working well tonight!"

* Standard etiquette among Vorta in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/43326153/chapters/108907977 we are the challengers of the unknown]]'' (and other fics by the same author) when addressing Founders is to refer to oneself as "this servant" or simply "one." Odo discourages this among the Vorta he personally works with.

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