How would one express an opinion from the perspective of an inclusive group?

Question

Often times, it is common for a speaker to make an assertion or opinion based upon a (ethnic or social) group to which they belong. In English it is common to use prefixes like "we" or "us" to indicate this. For example:

We Americans love hamburgers.

We Trekkies believe that Klingon is a better alternative to English.

Is there an equivalent to this in Japanese?

Using the first example as a baseline, a possible translation could be to use の as a modifier, and could be rendered as:

[私達]{わたしたち}のアメリカ[人]{じん}はハンバーガーが[大好]{だいす}きだよ！

But I have no idea how this would be interpreted by native speakers.

Also, since idea of making statements based upon an inclusive group may be seen differently depending on the culture, if someone could tie in some tidbits as to how common it is to use expressions like this, how they reflect upon social status, or any other important things to note, that'd be great.

+1 interesting, and also in sympathy for the tone in the original version of one of the answers. — Golden Cuy, Jun 09 '12 at 04:28

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:18

6

It is said the same way as in English: "私たち---" / "We ---"

For example, "私たち日本人" is a common way to say "We Japanese". Your inclusion of の was incorrect.

Here are a number of examples:

http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=私たち日本人

The same goes for "We Americans," (私たちアメリカ人) and as an added bonus, here is an example with 我

We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom.

我々アメリカ人は自由への信念を決して秘密にはしない。

http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%22we+americans%22

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:18

Community

1

answered Jun 08 '12 at 15:55

yadokari

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Btw, how do I embed the link? – yadokari Jun 08 '12 at 15:57
Please see: http://meta.japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/99/markdown-parser-doesnt-understand-urls-with-japanese – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 08 '12 at 16:17
Can you use the same example as the one in the question? Changing from Americans to Japanese seems like a distraction to me. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 08 '12 at 16:18
As mentioned here, the easiest method to work with Japanese links is to simply use the "link" button in the edit window. (it looks like a little bit of chain-link) – jkerian Jun 08 '12 at 18:11

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 25 '12 at 02:38

Put some sauce in your rice, or mix you curry with your rice, and you'll definitely hear what I strongly believe is "We Japanese don't do that":

日本人は〜しません

You could also probably hear 我々日本人は, though it sounds a little bit more formal.

How would one express an opinion from the perspective of an inclusive group?

2 Answers2

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