お年寄り
otoshiyori
The Japanese phrase for "old person" is お年寄り (otoshiyori).
お年寄り is a polite term used to refer to an elderly person. It is commonly used in social contexts, such as when discussing elderly people in a community or when expressing care for them.
What does it mean word for word?
The term is built from the honorific prefix お, the word for age/years 年 and the verb stem of yoru meaning to approach or lean towards.
Which one should you use?
While お年寄り is a polite and soft way to refer to an elderly person, the term 老人 is more clinical, formal and can sometimes feel blunt or dehumanizing in casual conversation.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
お年寄り is a polite and respectful way to refer to an elderly person. For more formal contexts, you can use 高齢者 for "old person" or 年配者 for "older person". In modern and informal contexts, the borrowed term シニア is used to describe an "older person".
How does it change in a sentence?
To refer to a group of elderly people, you can add the plural suffix たち to the end of the phrase to make お年寄りたち.
How do you pronounce it?
otoshiyori
Did you know?
- Depending on the region, some people use the term おじいさん or おばあさん even for strangers as a warm, familial way to say 'old person', though お年寄り remains the safest polite choice.
- In Japan, the concept of 'old age' is sometimes expressed through the phrase 年を重ねる, which literally means 'piling up years' like layers of a cake or lacquer.
- While 'old' often carries a negative weight in English, the root word of お年寄り, which is 年, is also the word for 'New Year's' when used in the phrase 新年.
Examples in context
- お年寄りに優しくしましょう。Otoshiyori ni yasashiku shimashō.Let's be kind to elderly people.
- あの方は、とても元気なお年寄りです。Ano kata wa, totemo genki na otoshiyori desu.That person is a very energetic elderly person.
- お年寄りのための席があります。Otoshiyori no tame no seki ga arimasu.There are seats for elderly people.
Example conversation
Misaki and Ren are talking on a train.
- 美咲 Misakiあのお年寄りに席を譲りましょう。Ano otoshiyori ni seki o yuzurimashō.Let's offer our seat to that elderly person.
- 蓮 Renそうですね、美咲さん。行きましょう。Sō desu ne, Misaki-san. Ikimashō.You're right, Misaki. Let's go.
- 美咲 Misaki蓮さんはとても優しいですね。Ren-san wa totemo yasashii desu ne.Ren, you are very kind.
- 蓮 Renいえ、当たり前のことです。Ie, atarimae no koto desu.No, it's just the right thing to do.
