I’ve always assumed Asian languages to be very informal as a lot of it has to do with context. At least that’s how some of my friends talk to each other. And one of the reasons why it’s so hard to blend in. It could also be possible that they rarely talk formally in person, and I’ve yet to experience it.
> I’ve always assumed Asian languages to be very informal as a lot of it has to do with context.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but if you're thinking about "East Asian languages omitting 'necessary' grammatical parts all the time", then you might be talking about this:
Note that this is a grammatical phenomenon exhibited by some languages (i.e., the characteristics of a language as a whole). Formality/informality is a concept associated with a particular "speech" inside a language, which is orthogonal to this. (You can say a particular speech in English is formal or informal, but it makes little sense to say that "English" as a whole is a formal or informal language.)
Interesting. I’ve mistakenly assumed that there is a relative difference between formal and informal counterparts. Considering the extreme informality of Eastern Asian languages, I didn’t think their formal language was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
When it comes to written language, there are formal and informal styles. I am a Mandarin speaker and can read texts and social media pretty well because it follows many spoken conventions. But I have great difficulty with the styles employed in most Chinese newspapers. It's not just the vocabulary, there are written conventions that I don't hear in conversational settings. One exception: The Apple Daily (蘋果日報) which uses a different written style for headlines, infographics, and body text. It's less formal, more colloquial, and easier to understand.
At least with Korean and Japanese, they are highly formal as they have different conjugations depending on the level of the person you're speaking to.
With Korean, spoken language among roughly same-age friends is informal, of course. But if someone is older, then there's a different ending, unless you know them well enough to speak in informal language.
If you're speaking to your boss there's a different level of formality, and people like your grandparents get honorifics which are also conjugated, but alongside with formality.
It also reinforces social pressures of obeying your boss/elders, which stem from Korea's roots in Confucianism/Neo-Confuncianism.
It's no wonder people like to use English sometimes.
On the contrary, both Chinese and Japanese are very formal as to the written. Ancient Chinese has a high bar between formally written and oral ones. In recent centuries the difference got smaller, but there is still a big difference. On the plus side, most Chinese write emails colloquially.
I’ve always assumed Asian languages to be very informal as a lot of it has to do with context. At least that’s how some of my friends talk to each other. And one of the reasons why it’s so hard to blend in. It could also be possible that they rarely talk formally in person, and I’ve yet to experience it.