これ？それ？あれ？ – The Difference between this and that in Japanese
You can remember the difference between これ, それ, and あれ by knowing the location of the speaker and listener.
◆ これ – Something next to the Speaker
◆ それ – Something next to the Listener
◆ あれ – Something away from the Speaker and the Listener
So, that takes care of most of the difference between the three words. However, there is a bit more to learn in order to be able to fully understand the difference.
INDEX
Explaining the difference between これ、それ、あれ
The first thing to know is that it does not matter how close the speaker and listener are to each other. It only matters how close they are to whatever it is that you are talking about.
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So, if you are talking to someone over the phone in another country about their shoes or whatever, you would use それ. It does not matter that the person is far away from you, it only matters where the thing is that is being referred to.
Check out the examples below to illustrate the difference between これ、それ、and あれ.
これは家族の写真です
This is a picture of my family
あ、それは僕の財布だ！
That is my wallet!
あれは鵜という鳥ですよ
That is a bird called u
For the first example and the last one, it is easy to infer the situation. In the first example, someone is pulling a picture out and showing someone else. The last example is a situation where one person is pointing at a bird away from both the speaker and listener.
The second sentence is a bit more ambiguous.
So, if you are talking to someone over the phone in another country about their shoes or whatever, you would use それ. It does not matter that the person is far away from you, it only matters where the thing is that is being referred to.
Check out the examples below to illustrate the difference between これ、それ、and あれ.
これは家族の写真です
This is a picture of my family
あ、それは僕の財布だ！
That is my wallet!
あれは鵜という鳥ですよ
That is a bird called u
For the first example and the last one, it is easy to infer the situation. In the first example, someone is pulling a picture out and showing someone else. The last example is a situation where one person is pointing at a bird away from both the speaker and listener.
The second sentence is a bit more ambiguous.
それ – Close to both Speaker and Listener
それ can be used for not only something close to the listener.
It can also be used when something is close to the speaker and the listener at the same time.
Take a look at the sentence below:
あ、それは僕の財布だ！
That is my wallet!
This could have two different interpretations:
① The speaker sees that the listener is holding a wallet which the speaker recognizes as their own.
② Two people are walking outside and notice a wallet on the bench they sit down on. One person then notices it is their wallet
The difference is not extreme but important. You can think of それ in this situation as あれ. The only difference would be that the wallet is closer to the the speaker and listener.
あ、あれは僕の財布だ！
That is my wallet over there
