Is one more polite than the other? Is there some situations where you'd use one or the other? Would different people prefer one?
Answer
In my generation, トイレ is definitely the most common word refers to that facility, over any native word. お手洗い is also usually heard, but whoever says お手洗い in daily conversations would be judged being overly polite or really well-born. Nonetheless, we hear お手洗い more often than not because it's very popular in salesperson-ese, thus you're quite likely to run into such a situation:
Customer: すいません。トイレはどこですか？
Waiter: お手洗いはあちらになります。
As other people already said, there are two more names of toilet room you may encounter in Japan today, but both aren't really spoken language.
便所: This word makes me feel either outdated or vulgar if spoken. Maybe because a typical 便所 I see is shabby, hoary, undermaintenanced equipments like the most of 公衆便所 standing outdoors.
化粧室: Most graceful word that only seen on signboards. Literally meaning "powder room", it might be a bit funny if you look at apparent characters 男性化粧室, but not many people seem to care about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment