Re: haha/kaasan

> > In textbooks I usually see that "haha" is for your own mother, and
> > "okaasan" is for other people's mothers. But I could swear that when
> > I was in Japan I heard people saying things like "ore no kaasan". Am
> > I just misremembering or is this one of those slangy/casual speech
> > things that kids use?
>
> Remember that when you are talking *to* your mother, there is nothing odd at
> all about using okaasan. Nobody would use haha. Only when talking *about*
> your mother to people not in your in-group would you refer to her as haha.

This is a matter of 敬語 system.
When you talk to your mother, you must speak respectfully to her.
So you use お母さん.

But when you talk to other people than your family, you must not be
respectful to YOUR family. The 内(uchi)-外(soto) rule forbids it.
Therefore you would usually say 母(haha) for your mother.
On the other hand, you must be respectful to OTHER people's mothers,
so you should refer to them as お母さん or お母さま.

========================================================================
飯嶋 浩光 / でるもんた・いいじま http://www.ht.sakura.ne.jp/~delmonta/
IIJIMA Hiromitsu, aka Delmonta mailto:delmonta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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