Jisho.org Forum

I can't really be sure, since I only have a basic understanding of Japanese, but for 者, I think the meaning is something like 'the one'. So if you put a descriptive phrase before it, I guess it would translate to 'the one who's [phrase]' or something similar. But well, I guess it's the same for 人.

What I do know is that 人 can be used without a qualifier while 者 has to be used with one.

...so 人 can be used either with or without a qualifier, while 者 can only be used with a qualifier?

I would say もの is used more for types or classifications rather than descriptions. You commonly see jobs using 者 within their kanji like 医者 (Doctor) or more well known 忍者 (Ninja). In anime you might hear "何者か？！？" when people encounter a supernatural/strange person, meaning roughly, what kind of thing/person/being are you? ひと is for describing people, and you wouldn't use it to talk about the classification.

And please be careful with romaji, it's jin, not gin. Even though it sounds the same as the drink, it's spelled with a j in romaji, gin means silver.

...didn't quite get it... it would be easier if you put some rules, that way I'd understand
btw, my bad there, really is jin instead of gin... got confused there ;P

Rather than trying to remember rules about how they're used, maybe it would be better to just learn words as you go? You don't need to know what can be used with a qualifier and what can't and whatever else if you just learn 老人　医者　社会人　科学者　殺人　若者　and so on, one by one. I'm not sure why you'd need to be able to create words on the fly using 人 or 者.

I always wandered that the word "person" or "people" have many readings, and among them, the most used words (人 and 者) have diferent readings ( respectivelly hito/nin/gin and mono/sha). But it's too hard to distinguish the use of these words!
One of my conclusion was that 人 is used to an unqualified person (like "that person") and 者 is for qualified ones ( like "rich person" or "busy person"), but then I recently saw japanese people saying "shiranai hito" (unknow person) and as I searched a little, more people talked that style and it wasn't considerated wrong by anyone, and that totally broke my theory...
And on top of that I don't even know how to use the correct reading for each case... guess japanese is indeed something very complicated in these times...can someone light things up for me? It would be a great help!! ...Onegai?

Posted By: louis

[p]Rather than trying to remember rules about how they're used, maybe it would be better to just learn words as you go? You don't need to know what can be used with a qualifier and what can't and whatever else if you just learn 老人　医者　社会人　科学者　殺人　若者　and so on, one by one. I'm not sure why you'd need to be able to create words on the fly using 人 or 者.[/p]

I see... guess I'll have to remember those words one by one instead then.
thanks to all people for your help!

don't forget about 手!　運転手