Demonstratives with こそあど words

Demonstratives are words that mean things like "this", "that", etc.

Japanese is different from English on this front in two ways. First, its demonstratives are much more regular, and second, its demonstratives map to three "locations" instead of two. This is easier shown than explained, so let’s look at examples:

これ
this (something that is near the speaker)

それ
that (something that is near the listener)

あれ
that over there (something that is distant from both speaker and listener)

どれ
which 

これはペンです
This is a pen

それは猫ですか？
Is that a cat? (the cat is close to the listener)

あれは何？
What is that? (pointing at something away from both you and the listener)

どれがいい？  
Which is good?

The above four words are "demonstrative pronouns". Two of them translate into English as "that", but they have different connotations in Japanese. それ is for things that are near the listener. あれ is for things that are far from both the speaker and the listener.

In case you hadn’t noticed the pattern, as this lesson title points out, we sometimes call them all together こそあど because they differ between them only by the first kana syllable.

Even though the split between the two "that" exists, the way these words are used is very similar to how they are used in English.

There is another group of very similar こそあど demonstratives that grammatically work differently, but when translated into English they are hard to explain, so let’s look at examples first:

この<noun>
this <noun>

その<noun>
that <noun>

あの<noun>
that <noun> over there

どの<noun>
which <noun>

These words cannot exist standalone, and they must attach to the noun that comes after them. The meaning is the same as the other group, but their usage is slightly different.

Imagine you are holding a book and you want to say “This is a book”. “Book” is the focus of the sentence, so you would say これは本です. You are simply stating “this = book” using a copula. However, if you want to say something about this book, you would instead say この本は面白いです. This book is interesting. “This” and “book” become a single unit. In English both “This is a book” and “This book is interesting” use the same “this” word, but in Japanese one uses これ and the other uses この.

The same applies for all the other こそあど words with の.

There are many other words that fall into the こそあど type of structure. We won’t cover all of them here, but they are usually fairly regular insofar as they all follow the rule:

こ = close to the speaker  
そ = close to the listener  
あ = far from both  
ど = question word

あ is the only row that has slightly irregular pronunciation, but you’ll know when you come across them. Here are some examples:

Note: The こちら group can also be used as a polite way to refer to people in a polite setting, because it adds indirectness. On the other hand, the こいつ group can often sound rude so don’t call people こいつ.

Just like in English, physical distance is not the only determiner for these words. They can also be used to refer to something that is distant in time. They can even be affected by the degree of familiarity on the topic between the speaker and the listener. Something mentioned earlier in a conversation might be referred to as あの<thing>, but something that has just been mentioned is more likely to be その<thing> instead. Just like in English we sometimes don’t know if we should say “this” or “that”, even in Japanese people don’t always agree so the distinction is not always strict in these situations.