Appropriate context for お前【まえ】


When I was learning about 持ってくる【もってくる】 in college we did some roleplaying to
practice using it. When my turn came up it was a husband and wife, with a line
along the lines of the following:

> あなたはビールを持ってこい。

(Context: I was playing the husband, saying this to the wife, played by a
fellow classmate.)

Deciding to use my broader vocabulary and try to make the dialogue sound more
natural, I decided to try substituting お前 for あなた. This produced an extremely
unpleasant look from my professor, with a request to see her in her office
after class. Upon arriving in her office, the lecture basically amounted to "I
don't know what kinds of things you read on your own time, but don't
**_ever_** use that word again!"

Was I seriously misusing the word, was she overreacting, or was it a bit of
both?




Well, it actually would not be terribly common for a wife to call her husband
お前 in the first place (at least in public), I think. The other way around
seems perfectly believable to me though.

Anyways, in trying to understand why your professor may have been upset by
that, all I can guess is that she considers お前 to be so jarringly incorrect
for whomever you were saying it to (e.g., the professor herself), that even
though you were roleplaying it would be considered going too far.

The word お前 itself is not like a swear word in English, it's regularly used
(in specific circumstances, such as between close male friends) and kids in
Japan hear it all the time (try watching an episode of ドラゴンボール), so I'm not
sure why she said "but don't ever use that word again!". Maybe she just
doesn't think that the class is ready to learn words which can only be used in
specific social contexts.

**Edit:** Since you said it to a classmate (though I assume the rest of the
class was listening and not practicing on their own?), I really think the
professor overreacted, unless you really don't know this classmate well at
all, or they are much older than you (i.e., anything that would cause お前 to be
jarringly inappropriate even when roleplaying).




Well, it actually would not be terribly common for a wife to call her husband
お前 in the first place (at least in public), I think. The other way around
seems perfectly believable to me though.

Anyways, in trying to understand why your professor may have been upset by
that, all I can guess is that she considers お前 to be so jarringly incorrect
for whomever you were saying it to (e.g., the professor herself), that even
though you were roleplaying it would be considered going too far.

The word お前 itself is not like a swear word in English, it's regularly used
(in specific circumstances, such as between close male friends) and kids in
Japan hear it all the time (try watching an episode of ドラゴンボール), so I'm not
sure why she said "but don't ever use that word again!". Maybe she just
doesn't think that the class is ready to learn words which can only be used in
specific social contexts.

**Edit:** Since you said it to a classmate (though I assume the rest of the
class was listening and not practicing on their own?), I really think the
professor overreacted, unless you really don't know this classmate well at
all, or they are much older than you (i.e., anything that would cause お前 to be
jarringly inappropriate even when roleplaying).

