I should preface this by saying that I myself am fairly young (a teenager) and
speak primarily to other young people (while I may not know their exact age,
it's safe to assume the other people I speak to are either teenagers
themselves or adults slightly older than me who have not stated their age). I
use Twitter as a platform to speak to Japanese people, and generally in
replying to their posts I am talking about media, art, etc. and am not trying
to say anything particularly meaningful. That said, which is the proper way to
speak under these circumstances-- formally or informally? Most of these people
are not ones with whom I'd spoken to privately before, but because of how
communication online is facilitated I am a little shaky on whether speaking
formally would come across as excessive or whether speaking informally would
come off as rude. I see replies to Tweets in Japanese in both formal and
informal form, so is it just a matter of choice?

Tl;dr use of formal/informal conjugation in online interactions in Japanese
seems inconsistent to me, so I'm not sure which I should use.

In response to a post like "最近僕は描くことを考えるときに悲しくてなる", would it be better to
reply "[name]さんの絵が本当に大好きだよ！" or "[name]さんの絵が本当に好きです。"
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-05-29T16:30:35.653
77712
2023-07-16T04:05:35.657
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question
word-choice politeness formality
What's the proper form (formal/informal) to use when speaking to others online?
The poster has used 僕 (boku) which is a fairly informal way of referring to
oneself as a young person so I think "[name]さんの絵が本当に大好きだよ！" would be
acceptable and the よ at the end makes you sound quite emphatic that you like
that picture. If you just want to be a bit more reserved in your praise then
"[name]さんの絵が本当に好きです。" expresses that you like the picture but it's a bit less
enthusiastic.
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2020-05-30T12:57:16.630
77725
2020-05-30T12:57:16.630
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answer
I don't think you can go wrong if you use the same formality as if you were
speaking them in person.

If it is someone you don't know, then match their politeness level (as they
also don't know you), or just stick to です・ます Japanese, which is also common.

*Just because someone is younger than you (with the exception of kids), it is still common for adults to use polite Japanese until they are much better acquainted.

*Many places online (for example YouTube comments) will have many people using informal Japanese, but it certainly isn't wrong to use polite Japanese either, as lots of people also do.

*If it is high school age people, then informal is probably used a lot online.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-02-16T02:47:59.390
98615
2023-02-16T02:47:59.390
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answer