"Anata" roughly translates to "you," but is not used nearly
as often as "you" is in English. Anata is primarily used
by spouses in adressing each other and sometimes in absolutely impersonal situations such as packaged instructions or announcements. Most of the time (always as far as a foreigner is concerned), the person's name should
be used instead or not referred to at all, i.e. omitted as is common in Spanish and some other languages. Some old grammar books use this pronoun extensively, but this is deprecated. As a side note, always make sure that your Japanese language study materials are up-to-date, because the language is somewhat more volatile than English.

The plural forms of this word are "anatagata" or "anatatachi". The former is more polite than the latter. The rudest plural forms of this concept are "omaetachi" or "omaera".

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