great site. now that i'm learning japanese, i can actually use something like this instead of bookmarking it for future use. i thot the entry about ください/下さい was really interesting, since as someone who has a background in chinese, i have a habit of writing everything in 漢字, and don't understand when and where it is habitually used in japanese.

I see that that etymology-obsessed speaker who prefers archaic forms couldn't help but chime in on the discussion andy mentioned....

I think it's helpful to think of "kudasai" in both situations as meaning the same thing, and that being the reason it's polite--"Hey you up there, please do this for humble me down here." Like you said, the use of kanji is just convention.

Yeah, they clearly are the "same" word being used in different contexts, and you can find all the great (pre-present day, perhaps) writers using 下さい in both contexts, so I couldn't let that go uncommented-on. But I suppose that's the beauty of the group weblog with comments: extreme cases like me get tacked on as commentary after the general rule that reporters and college students have to follow is made clear.

Anyway, you should comment that there!

Ah, something about that kind of site makes me feel like an old academic killjoy raining on the parade of enthusiasm held for the Japanese language by a bunch of anime converts.

Maybe if I had my copy of _Making Sense of Japanese_ by Jay Rubin handy I would venture to put together a cohesive thought about the notion of direction in Japanese keigo (kudasaru, itadaku, ageru, kureru, etc.) for that site, but I have no idea even what country it's in.

Hey, thanks for the plug. I got a good kick out of the last sentence ;)

You're right, I think the beauty of comments is that it's not only article, but discussion as well.

And I can't say I dislike anime, amida, but I'd still be interested in that cohesive thought ;)