掲示板 Forums - Some questions about words for referring to people

1. How do words like こいつ, あいつ etc. work? The idea of being both derogatory and familiar sounds strange to me- I thought they might be like an affectionate "idiot," but it seems more like one or the other, since once I saw it translated as an affectionate "little guy" and another time an aggressive "that thing." How are they both? Does it come down to tone? Context? Will it always sound rough, or is it extra kind in some contexts? How aggressive are they in a negative context?

2. I think I've heard that 母 is generally used when talking about your mom to somebody outside of your group and above you, while お母さん is for everything else? But what about just 母さん? I would have guessed it's a bit rude without the お, but a character who says 母さん both directly to his mom and when talking about her to others loves her a ton, he wouldn't be rude to her. So what does the lack of お actually convey?

3. How does おまえ work? I've heard it's rude unless it's a very close male\male relationship, but to me it seems like kind of the default "you"? Do the rules change completely in anime? It caught me really off guard to see a sweet character crying and apologizing to someone who hated him... seconds after calling them おまえ. I feel like... I'm definitely missing something with that

1. "derogatory" is way too strong. They are appropriate for casual settings among close friends, but even then it depends on your relationship and the personal preferences of the speaker.

I often hear あいつ/こいつ simply used to address someone with a bit of added "attitude". To me it's just casual, maybe a little "rough". Not inherently "affectionate"; not inherently "aggressive". For example, if a friend is being "annoying", you might say こいつ… ("this guy..."). I feel like it's more common between people who are very comfortable with each other and tend to banter a lot.

An annoyed/angry こいつ！, あいつ！ is probably where you've seen the more aggressive/negative translations. That's all down to context, tone, and delivery though. I don't feel anything from the words themselves.

Even in that context I wouldn't flag them as "aggressive". That's more so about context, tone, and delivery.

2. 母さん is just more casual. Maybe a bit more masculine compared to お母さん. Try not to overinterpret "rudeness" based on whether or not a word has 御 (お・ご). A lot of the time it's just a casual vs polite thing.

People also switch depending on context. A teenage boy who uses 母さん will (probably) switch to a less casual form of address when talking to a teacher or the school principle.

3. Anime can be very weird... おまえ is absolute not a default "you". You *can* hear it between close friends, usually when they're bantering (regardless of gender), but outside of that it's a big no no.

And yes, certain characters will just consistently use おまえ. It's just part of how they talk. It usually does fit their character, but you'd have to give me examples. I'd say it's usually used by more masculine characters, but they can lean either more aggressive or more stoic (cold). Idk, it's hard to explain without examples.

PS: Take everything I've said with a grain of salt. I'm no native and I didn't do any research

PPS: Keep in mind anime has a whole bunch of archetypes and settings (medieval, 戦国時代, fantasy, etc). Certain characters will use language that's way outside of what's considered normal in real life.