Japanese Plural Suffixes: Tachi, Ra, Gata, Domo and Doubled Nouns

Nouns carry no number: hon is book and books

Start with what you do not have to do. English forces a choice between cat and cats every time. Japanese does not. The noun is a photograph without a count, and the listener fills in the number from the scene. At a bookshop till with three paperbacks in your hand, hon o kaimasu is complete.

When the number matters, you say it, with a number and counter or with a quantity word. Other posts on this site cover counters and quantity words in detail, so here you only need the principle: number is extra information you add, not a form the noun takes.

Tachi draws a circle around people

Tachi takes one person, or one kind of person, and draws a circle around them and those with them. With a general noun the result looks like an English plural: kodomotachi, the children. With a name, the circle shows its true nature. Tanaka-san-tachi is not several people called Tanaka. It is Tanaka-san and whoever belongs with Tanaka-san in this scene: the family, the team, the friends who came along.

A mother at the school gate is chatting with another parent while they wait.

Even with people, tachi is optional. Kodomo ga asonde imasu can describe twenty children. Speakers add tachi when they are picturing the group as a group of individuals, which is why it often sounds warm.

How each suffix attaches

All four suffixes attach directly to a noun, pronoun or name, after san or sama if there is one. Nothing else changes. The noun must refer to a living being, because only living beings gather in a circle. Doubling is a different process, which has its own section below.

Two everyday words hide old suffixes. Tomodachi, friend, contains tachi, and kodomo, child, contains domo. Both lost their plural meaning long ago, so tomodachi ga hitori, one friend, is perfectly normal, and kodomotachi adds a fresh tachi on top.

Politeness: gata, tachi, ra and domo

Why four suffixes for one job? Because in Japanese, how you refer to people shows where you stand in relation to them, and a group is no exception. Gata comes from kata, the respectful word for person, so it lifts the group up. Tachi is level. Ra is casual, close or rough. Domo lowers the group, which makes it humble when the group is your own side and insulting when it is someone else's.

At a hotel reception desk, the clerk refers to guests with gata or sama and to the hotel itself with domo.

One word changed: five ways to say our company

The phrases below mean our company in English. Only the word for we changes, and with it the speaker, the listener and the room.

The circle idea explains a detail learners miss. Watashitachi can include the listener, as in watashitachi, ikimashō ka, shall we go? Watakushidomo never does. Its circle is drawn around the speaker's side only, which is what makes it humble: we, as opposed to you, the honoured customer.

First-person words themselves, watashi, boku and ore, are covered in a separate post. What matters here is that the suffix you add has its own politeness, and the two must match. Oretachi and orera are both common. Watakushi-ra is not.

Beyond the basics: doubled nouns like hitobito and yamayama

Some nouns form a plural by being said twice: hito becomes hitobito, yama becomes yamayama. In writing, the repeat mark is used instead of the second kanji. The first sound of the second half often becomes voiced, so hito turns into bito and kuni into guni, while sounds with no voiced partner, such as the y of yamayama, stay as they are.

The meaning is not simply more than one. A doubled noun means many of them, one after another, seen as a spread: the mountains ranged along the horizon, the countries of the world, the houses along a street. This use does not come from the circle idea, and it is best learned as vocabulary. The set is closed. You cannot double a noun freely, so nekoneko and honhon do not exist.

Wareware is itself a doubled word, from the old pronoun ware. Doubled nouns belong mostly to writing, speeches and narration. In conversation, iroiro na kuni, various countries, is more natural than kuniguni.

Which nouns cannot take tachi, and what to use instead

Since tachi draws a circle of companions, it needs members who can be companions. People qualify. Animals usually qualify, especially pets and animals in stories. Objects, places and abstract ideas do not, so isu, kuruma, machi and mondai stay bare.

The neighbours that do the work for things are counters and quantity words. For this and these, Japanese has korera and sorera, which are formal and mostly written. In speech, kore covers both, or you say kono hon, zenbu, all of these books.

Common mistakes with Japanese plurals

The first mistake is tachi on things. Learners say hontachi o kaimashita because English demands books. It is wrong in standard Japanese. Say hon o kaimashita, or hon o takusan kaimashita if the quantity matters.

The second is hearing a name plus tachi as several people of that name. Satō-san-tachi ga kimasu does not mean the Satōs are coming. It means Satō-san and whoever is with Satō-san, who may have entirely different names.

The third is the wrong level. Calling a group of teachers sensei-ra, or asking customers anata-tachi wa, sounds rough because ra and tachi do not lift the listener. Say sensei-gata and mina-sama.

The fourth is using watakushidomo to include the listener. Watakushidomo mo ikimashō, meant as let's go together, is wrong, because domo shuts the listener out of the circle. Say watashitachi, or simply issho ni ikimashō.

The fifth is inventing doubled nouns. Inuinu and honhon are not words. If a doubled form is not in the dictionary, use takusan no or iroiro na.

• Things: bare noun, number plus counter, or takusan
• Name plus tachi: that person and their group
• Respected people: gata, mina-san, mina-sama
• Humble we, listener excluded: watakushidomo

How plurals sound in real conversation

In everyday speech the most common plural-like words are not suffixes at all. Minna and mina-san, everyone, do the job for groups of people. Friends talk about uchira, a casual we heard especially from younger speakers, and about ano hitotachi, those people.

Tachi is frequent with pronouns and with kodomo, and much less frequent elsewhere. If you catch yourself adding tachi to every noun that would have an s in English, take most of them off. Your Japanese will sound lighter immediately.