Learning Japanese with Kill Bill

Let’s take a look at the following words: this, that and over there.

Kochira, sochira, achira y dochira.

These four words are the most formal forms for: koko, soko, asoko, doko. They indicate an address or a person
For example:
Dochira sama desu ka? Which person is this?

This phrase tends to be used when you answering the phone. In English it would be similar to “Who is this?”
The answer to that question would be:

Kochira wa Miguel-san desu.
This person is Miguel.

Donata is a synonym for Dochira which can be used also, but dochira is slightly more formal.

Let’s take a look at a scene of Kill Bill (we only need 17 seconds).

Gogo da ne?
Bingo. Socchi wa Burakku Manba.

Translation:

Gogo, right? Bingo. You’re Black Mamba.

Okay, now let’s explain what happened…

First the Bride says:

Gogo = the name of the Japanese girl
Da = desu but in an extremely colloquial way, there is nothing formal about this one.
Ne = is a particle that can be translated as: right?

Gogo should be more polite and say something like:

Bingo. Sochira wa Burakku Manba desu.

But she is a real badass and uses the colloquial speaking form. She says “da” instead of “desu”…

Gogo says “socchi” instead of “sochira“.

The next class will summarise all demonstrations we’ve seen so far, in order to understand the differences between them even better.