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I know that, in Japanese, you can say `X達【たち】` or `Xら` (where X is a first
person pronoun) to say `we`.

However, what rules should be followed for choosing that "X". Can I use
whatever I would use to refer to myself and then add 達 / ら, or should I use a
pronoun that would be acceptable for both myself and the other people
included.

Here's a specific example: Could a female say `あたし達` to refer to herself and
some males, or would `あたし達` imply that everyone in the group is female (as it
would in Spanish and probably similar languages)?
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2012-06-13T01:50:59.787
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pronouns first-person-pronouns plurals plural-suffixes
What rules should be followed when saying "we"?
達 or ら is not especially for first person. Although there are combinations
that you cannot use, they can be used with other persons.

> あなたたち, あなたら, 君たち, 君ら

達 is different from pluralization. It means "and others". 私たち means "I and
others". The others do not have to fit the original noun or pronoun. But for
the pronoun part, I don't think you see much difference from English "we".
"We" does not refer to a group of people who are all "me" (which is an
impluasible situation); it is rather me and other people. The same with
Japanese.

Regarding your gender part with Spanish, I think you are mentioning markedness
of the feminine feature. That is, feminine is a marked gender as opposed to
masculine that is the default. I am not sure about Spanish examples, but from
Portuguese examples that I have seen and from what you wrote, I am guessing
that a mixed group of male and female can be referred to with the plural of
the masculine third person pronoun, but not with a feminine one; is this what
you mean? I think there is a confusion between first and third person in the
question. In Japanese, 彼ら can refer to a mixed gender group including at least
one male. 彼女ら can refer to a mixed group including at least one female.
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2012-06-13T02:19:06.947
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2012-06-13T12:05:13.767
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In informal settings, you might use あたし達, to your parents-in-law you might use
私達, and in business settings, you might use 我々 or 私共. It can depend on many
things, including possibly your gender, but _it doesn't generally depend on
whether there is somebody of the other gender in the group you refer to_.

The Japanese plural marker 達 as well as ら and others AFAIK, can work as
[associative plurals](http://wals.info/chapter/36). This means that you can
use 田中君達 to mean "Tanaka and others associated with him (whose names are not
necessarily Tanaka)". Compare this to English "the Joneses" in which you would
usually expect all of the people referred to to have the name "Jones".

Thus, あたし達 can be thought of as "I and others associated with me".
Semantically, this isn't really different from "we", but it might give an
explanation of why you don't need to change あたし to something else, just
because there is a male in the group.

All this being said, I venture the statement that 達 and other Japanese plural
markers can also be used an additive (normal) plural. For example, unless the
speaker has a specific 部長 in mind, you would usually understand うちの会社の部長達 as
the group of 部長s (and only 部長s) from the speaker's company.
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2012-06-13T11:24:11.070
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