What makes 「どこからきた？」 rude?


It was mentioned in a
[comment](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/36099/how-rude-is-it-
to-speak-to-a-japanese-stranger-informally-instead-of-using-
the-p#comment71136_36099) that 「どこからきた？」 is not only informal, but outright
rude. The way the comment is written makes me think that this goes beyond
grammatical politeness and would be improper even in -ます form. Is that true?

A naive translation to English (I'm not a native speaker) could perhaps be
"Where do you come from?" or "Where did you come from?" which seem to sound
fairly neutral with no rudeness in them...

What makes the Japanese sentence rude? Is there some generic guideline that
would apply not just to this sentence? So that we don't avoid it here while
committing a similar rudeness elsewhere

Perhaps it has something to do with directness of the question and having
listener as a subject on top of it. But in my materials it seemed like a
preference (especially for highly polite speech) rather than a hard universal
rule, they mentioned it briefly and not discussed in much detail...

Thank you!




There are similar sentences that are used in confrontational settings or in
order to insult somebody (e.g. お前らどこのもんじゃ or お前らどっからきたんじゃ, basically it
amounts to "You stranger!" or "What kind of inferior group do you come
from?"), so that similarity might be the reason.

Though there are certainly situations where it's completely fine. E.g.
「今日はどこから来たんですか？」(from where did you travel here today?) is perfectly polite.
Using it to ask generally where a person is from would indeed sound a bit rude
IMO.

**EDIT:**

> "Using it to ask generally where a person is from would indeed sound a bit
> rude IMO." - would you be able to say why?

I think it's because the verb 来る is too casual to inquire about something so
important (in traditional Japanese culture). Presumably similar to why we have
special verbs when it relates to the emperor. E.g. if an emperor dies, he
doesn't 死ぬ because that is too casual. Rather, he 崩御する. Or consider 生誕. This
word means exactly the same thing as 誕生 but it's reserved for important
people.

Generally the idea in Japanese culture is that using special words == more
respect, and thus casual/direct words == less respect.

> would it be a different case when rephrased like 「{name}さんはどこから来ましたか？」

It makes clear that you are trying to be respectful, and therefore it will be
interpreted as asking where you literally came (traveled) from (today). That
would be mundane enough to warrant the use of simple verbs.

That said I think it's common to hear expressions like 「〜さんってどっから来たの？」when
referring to a foreigner (e.g. ゾマホンさんってどっから来たの？). In my personal opinion there
is a hint of racism there but other people might have different opinions.




There are similar sentences that are used in confrontational settings or in
order to insult somebody (e.g. お前らどこのもんじゃ or お前らどっからきたんじゃ, basically it
amounts to "You stranger!" or "What kind of inferior group do you come
from?"), so that similarity might be the reason.

Though there are certainly situations where it's completely fine. E.g.
「今日はどこから来たんですか？」(from where did you travel here today?) is perfectly polite.
Using it to ask generally where a person is from would indeed sound a bit rude
IMO.

**EDIT:**

> "Using it to ask generally where a person is from would indeed sound a bit
> rude IMO." - would you be able to say why?

I think it's because the verb 来る is too casual to inquire about something so
important (in traditional Japanese culture). Presumably similar to why we have
special verbs when it relates to the emperor. E.g. if an emperor dies, he
doesn't 死ぬ because that is too casual. Rather, he 崩御する. Or consider 生誕. This
word means exactly the same thing as 誕生 but it's reserved for important
people.

Generally the idea in Japanese culture is that using special words == more
respect, and thus casual/direct words == less respect.

> would it be a different case when rephrased like 「{name}さんはどこから来ましたか？」

It makes clear that you are trying to be respectful, and therefore it will be
interpreted as asking where you literally came (traveled) from (today). That
would be mundane enough to warrant the use of simple verbs.

That said I think it's common to hear expressions like 「〜さんってどっから来たの？」when
referring to a foreigner (e.g. ゾマホンさんってどっから来たの？). In my personal opinion there
is a hint of racism there but other people might have different opinions.

