Whether it’s English, Japanese, or any other language, every language has its own rules and with rules, the language becomes complicated to use. Japanese is the language that will be discussed in this article.
The Japanese words “honto” and “honto ni” are different but seem the same, but before diving into that, let’s talk about the Japanese language.
However, here is a brief table for the differences between “honto” and “honto ni.”
| Honto | Honto ni |
| It means “really” | It’s an emphasized version of “really” |
| It’s used as a noun | It is used to modify a verb or an adjective |
| It shows a casual relationship between two people when used | It shows a formal relationship between two people |
Japanese is an East Asian language that is spoken by 128 million people natively, most of them are Japanese people, as it’s the national language of the country of Japan.
Japanese belongs to a family of languages which is called Japonic, however, its classification is yet to be cleared with other families. Some linguists tried to group Japonic languages with other families like Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and now-discredited Altaic, however, all of these proposals weren’t accepted. Japanese doesn’t have any demonstrable genealogical relationship with the language Chinese, but a large part of Japanese vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese.
The differences between “honto” and “honto ni” are, “honto’ is a casual word, while “honto ni” is more formal. Moreover, “ni” in “honto ni” makes it have stronge emphasis. “Honto” is mostly used as a noun, whereas “honto ni” is used to modify a verb or an adjective, it’s also a conjuctive form of a na-adjective (Na-adjectives are all those which don’t end with い with just a few exceptions and the exceptions are “beautiful” (きれい), “hate” (きらい), and “grateful/happy” (さいわい) which may look like い adjectives, but they’re conjugate as na-adjectives in fact).
Keep reading to know more.
The Japanese Language
Japanese is an agglutinative and mora-timed language accompanied by simple phonotactics, an easy and pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a significant lexical pitch accent (Pitch-accent is a feature of the Japanese language which differentiates words by accenting particular morae in many Japanese dialects).
The order of making a sentence is normally subject-object-verb with particles marking grammatical functions of words as well as sentence structure of topic and comment.
Here are some key points:
- Sentence-final particles are used for the addition of emotional or emphatic impact or form questions.
- Nouns don’t have grammatical numbers or gender.
- There aren’t any articles.
- Verbs are conjugated, only for tense and voice, and not the person.
- Japanese adjectives are conjugated.
- Japanese honorifics system has verb forms and vocabulary to denote the relative status of the speaker, the listener, as well as persons mentioned.
- In written Japanese, there are some Chinese characters used, known as kanji (漢字, lit. Han characters).
- In the Japanese writing system, there is a use of two unique syllabic (or moraic) scripts ( which are derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters): hiragana (simple characters) and katakana (partial characters).
- Latin script is used as well, but in a limited fashion, such as: in imported acronyms in Japanese writing.
- The Japanese numeral system primarily uses Arabic numerals, but there’s also the use of traditional Chinese numerals.
Learn more about the Japanese language through this video.
“Honto” and “Honto ni” are also written as “Hontou” and “Hontouni or Hontou ni” respectively.
Let’s now dive into what “honto” and “honto ni” means and how they’re used.
“Honto ni” is considered a formal phrase, whereas “honto” is said to be casual, when one uses “honto ni”, it shows that the relationship between the speaker and the listener is formal, and when one uses “honto” is indicates that the relationship between the speaker and the listener is casual.
“Honto ni” means “really”, however “ni” puts a stronger emphasis on it. “Honto” means same as “honto ni”. The only difference is of “ni” which makes it have stronger emphasis.
The word “honto” or “hontou” can mean, really, very, truly, actually, or genuinely in English. It’s used in terms of a fact, reality, or truth.
Furthermore, “honto” is used as a noun, while “honto ni” is said to be a conjunctive form of a na-adjective and is also used in the modification of a verb or an adjective.
What’s the difference between Honto and Honto NI?
The big difference between “Honto” and “honto ni” is that, “honto” indicates a casual relation between the speaker and the listener, while “honto ni’ suggests a formal relation between the speaker and the listener. Moreover, “Honto” is used as a noun, on the other hand “honto ni” is used in order to modify verb or an adjective, it’s also a conjunctive of a na-adjective.
As with any other language, the Japanese language has its own rules, while words seem similar, they can have some differences that might make the impact of the sentences stronger.
“Honto” and “honto ni” might seem similar and they’re but in some ways, they have differences.
“Honto” means really, but there’s a strong emphasis on “ni”.
“Honto” in English means, really, truly, actually, and many other words like them.
What does Honto mean in English?
The Japanese word “honto” means, “really” in the English language.
However, when you search for what “hontou” or “honto” means in Japanese it shows that it means “really”.
Moreover, “honto” is used as a noun.
One thing that one should know is that “hontou” is correct, as it’s pronounced only as “honto” in a conversation, thus people think it “honto” rather than “hontou”.
How do you respond to Honto?
As “honto” shows doubt and asks a question if something is true or not, thus the only response can be ” yes it’s true”.
When people are making conversation, and one says something that others can’t believe, and they show their doubt by saying “hontou”, they’re asking if the thing that was said was true or not, therefore the person who told the unbelievable tale, one can respond it by repeating what he said or can respond it by saying “yes, it’s true”.
What is the difference between Honto Ni and Majide?
The only difference between “honto ni” and “maji de” is that, “honto ni” has stronger emphasis than “maji de”, however if you want emphasis in “maji de”, you can say “maji de yabai”.
“Maji de” is written in Japanese as まじで and it sounds like MAH-gee deh. It roughly translates as “really” or “for real?”.
The phrase “maji de” is used as a question which is, “are you serious?” If one wants to emphasize it, they can add “yabai”, and “Maji de yabai” means “seriously insane”.
As you must know by now, “honto” means, “really” and so does “maji de”, however “honto ni” is formal as well as a more emphasized version.
To Conclude
Japanese is an East Asian language that is spoken by about 128 million people who’re native to Japan. Japanese is a part of Japonic family of languages, Japanese doesn’t have a genealogical relationship with Chinese, nonetheless, a part of Japanese vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese.
The sentence order is subject-object-verb with particles that mark grammatical functions of words and a sentence structure of topic-comment. Moreover, nouns don’t have any grammatical number or gender and there aren’t articles. There are many other points, one should know about the Japanese language, and I’ve listed them above.
“Honto” is a casual word, while “honto ni” is formal, and”ni” in “honto ni” have stronger emphasis. “Honto” is primarily used as a noun, and “honto ni” is used to modify a verb or an adjective. Moreover, “honto ni” is a conjunctive form of a na-adjective.