De arimasu!

[Habunake]

Okay, I need someone with Japanese know-how. 2 questions

In the anime Keroro Gunso, the main character says De arimasu as a sentance ender. What exactly does it mean.

Next question, in the same anime "Mutsumi" sometimes writes his name as "626", since Mu is 6, Tsu is 2, and Mi is 6. So, does Japan have multiple ways of saying numbers or something?

 

[Archaic]

The "de aru" construction is an archaic and overly formal way of speach that has long since fallen out of use. Think of it as an overly formal "desu".

Japan does indeed have multiple ways of saying certain numbers, for certain situations. Mainly just the numbers 1-10 though.

 

[Habunake]

Uh, and "desu" means what?

Sorry, but I have a low Japanese level. x.x

 

[Unregistered]

Desu is just something you put after a noun to designate it as the sentence subject.

 

[Habunake]

Is this the mysteriou gadfly?

Anyway, thank you maybe-gadfly de arimasu!

 

[Kijuna]

Actually, that was me. I was at the library and forgot to log in. =x

 

[Zhen Lin]

No, no.

desu is a copula (to be, esse, ser/estar, 是, 이다 etc.), the polite form of da.

de aru is the formal form - you will see this occasionally in news, but it is not as common nowadays.

de arimasu, as expected, is the polite form of de aru. This is extremely rare.

de gozaimasu is a super-polite copula. Its plain form de gozaru on the other hand is just archaic.

Other forms you may encounter include ja (Kansai, Western Japan), ya (Kansai, Western Japan) and nari (classical/literary).

Finally - mi is not one of the readings for 6. It is for 3, though. In a Pokémon context, this wordplay is found in the term Route 758 - na-go-ya.

 

[Habunake]

So, you just add de arimasu to the end of sentances to be polite?

Yeah,the character is 623, not 626 like I said, twas a mistake de arimasu.

 

[Zhen Lin]

No, it doesn't work that way. You will rarely ever hear de arimasu in normal speech. Conversely, you will occasionally often hear abnormal speech in anime.

 

[birdboy2000]

Like Kenshin's use of de gozaru? (In fairness, this was meiji-era... though it was pretty archaic even then, ne?)

 

[Zhen Lin]

Naturally. de gozaru is more Edo-period, I would say.