Ok, I was chatting with my brother-in-law and we got into a simi-argument about the plural of anime. I think it is Animes but he thinks it is Anime (like deer is plural for deer). I just need to settle this, so what is the right way?
Jenn
Well, in the Japanese language there are no plurals. Anime as it is used in Japan is just anime. And since the word is adapted from Japanese then the proper way to refer to anime (plural or not) is just anime. There is no such thing as "animes" just as there's no such thing as "mangas".
(12-28-2009 05:32 PM)kaishu Wrote: [ -> ]Well, in the Japanese language there are no plurals. Anime as it is used in Japan is just anime. And since the word is adapted from Japanese then the proper way to refer to anime (plural or not) is just anime. There is no such thing as "animes" just as there's no such thing as "mangas".
To add to what Brandon said however, while he is technically correct in the Japanese grammar, the twist comes in the Americanization of the word. Because of the way the English language works, when a word is localized it picks up some new rules. Within English grammatical reasoning, anime would be treated similarly to fish. It is both a singular noun and a collective noun, with the non-collective plural being animes. Most people will prefer to stick to the direct Japanese ruling, however the American English language is a bit of a bastard child when it comes to situations like this, so realistically when dealing with a foreign word it many times would be left up to the interpreter.
ok, thanks.
Plural tense of things sometimes make me scratch my head? Like for Octopus. Octopus can be singular and plural but also Octopi is accepted as plural since octopuses is wrong.