Gome as an informal 'I'm sorry'

[rayman.the.one.and.only1_498570]

Min'na-san kon'nichiwa. ^_~ I was watching a video in Japanese the other day and one of the characters kept saying 'Gome' to mean I'm sorry instead of 'gomen'nesai' or 'gomen'ne' and I was wondering if this was a informal way to say sorry to someone?

[MicahT]

こんにちは！ Do you mean ごめん (gomen)? You're right in saying that it's an informal apology! The rest of ごめんなさい (gomennasai), the なさい (nasai) is an honorific, making it more polite (:

[community.japanese]

san,
konnichiwa.
What MicahT san said is correct.

Thank you, MicahT san.

Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[thegooseking]

It's worth getting used to the sound of moraic-n (which is to say, the sound of ん as opposed to the 'n' sound in なにぬねの). It's a nasalised sound, with the tongue not touching the upper teeth as it does in English, so it's a little harder to pick up.

You may have seen ん transliterated as "n/m", and another way to think of ん is as trying to pronounce an 'm' sound without putting your lips together. This is why it's sometimes transliterated as 'm' before any consonant sounds that force the lips together, like 'p' or 'b' (e.g. sempai, gambatte). That's not to say you should transliterate it this way - that's just a matter of which style you choose - but I think being aware of it does help to understand the pronunciation.

小狼

[rayman.the.one.and.only1_498570]

arigatou gozaimasu. ^_~

[community.japanese]

小狼san,
Konnichiwa.
Thank you for the advice.

san,
konnichiwa.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[rayman.the.one.and.only1_498570]

Thanks guys

[community.japanese]

san,
that’s ok.
Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com