Japanese 256 - Pluralizing suffixes - たち and ら

To turn certain words into plural forms, we can add たち to the end of a noun or pronoun. It can be written using hiragana, but is also sometimes written using kanji (たち).

たち is often used with personal pronouns such as わたし + たち = わたしたち (we, us), or あなた + たち = あなたたち (you, you guys).

It can be used to mark a group of people, e.g. がくせいたち (students), どもたち (children). Of course, がくせい and ども can be used on their own to mean students and children, so the key difference here is that たち implies there is a group in particular you are referring to.

The suffix () can also be used with some nouns to pluralize them, but as it can come across as very informal or direct it is safer to use たち when in doubt.

However, is used with かれ to make かれ (they, them), which is more commonly used than かれたち.

is also commonly used with これ and それ.

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