Happy New Year, all! As you might have gathered from last month’s post, 2025 was an eventful year, and fortunately it ended as smoothly as I could have hoped. The Japanese New Year’s holiday was excellent, as usual (as I recommended in the podcast last month), and I’m feeling recharged and ready to write.

I thought I’d give myself an easy initial project for the newsletter by starting with another installment of “impossible pairs.” 御社 (onsha, your company) and 弊社 (heisha, my/our company) are two words that I’ve finally come to terms with. They’re what I like to call “replacement pronouns,” which are words that are not “traditional” pronouns as we think of them in English but function as pronouns in Japanese.

Take a listen to the podcast:

I tried to think of other words that also fit into this category, but wasn’t able to think up any on my own other than additional combinations with 御 and 弊. 社 means company, and these can be attached to other kanji for different kinds of organizations and then be used in a similar fashion.

Weblio gives these examples:

弊屋 (heioku) – our (decrepit and humble) house
弊誌 (heishi) – our (unknown and humble) magazine/newspaper
弊店 (heiten) – our (unsightly and humble) store

These can all function as I/we in sentences.

It looks like 御 also works with at least 詩 and 店, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a number of other combinations that work with these characters.

After pitching my “replacement pronouns” idea to my wife, she suggested that 当, which I wrote about in the November newsletter, might fit this category. You can attach it to all sorts words that can in turn be used in place of “we” to refer to a group:

当グループ (tō-gurūpu) – our/this group
当校 (tōkō) – our/this school
当社 (tōsha) – our/this company
当行 (tōkō) – our/this bank

More generally, 当方 (tōhō, I/we) and 先方 (senpō, other party/side) are somewhat related but are closer to こちら (kochira, here/I/we) and そちら (sochira, there/you), which function as actual pronouns. These are effectively opposites: 当方 is used externally to refer to oneself/one’s company, while 先方 is used internally to refer to a third-party partner.

The only other words my wife suggested were 小職 (shōshoku, this government staff/I/me) and potentially 小生 (shōsei, I/me), although the former to me feels more along these lines.

I’m sure there are others I’m just not thinking of. Is there anything else that might work? I do feel like helping English speakers find the natural pronouns of Japanese is a cheat code to helping them feel more comfortable with the language.