Oh! That was Rilakkuma? :-)

I didn't put two and two together!

It's probably least useful when it repeats something that's wrong, hehe

@DariusJahandarie の shortens to ん in only certain circumstances in standard Japanese

As before だ・で (obviously) or I think in the contractions んち or んとこ

I think you already know this but I'm typing it anyway :-)

But I think の can be contracted to ん in final position in 関西弁

Or otherwise more generally

I don't know the details but I think I've heard it a lot

I found it in Martin 1975, p.945

> In standard Japanese it is possible to abbreviate nó to n[ó] when it is followed by dá (or other copula forms) or ká; ikú n[o] da, ikú n[o] ka. And in dialect speech you may run across a sentence-final n[ó] of the same sort: Totie tyaan―ítu gakko[o] e ikú n? Benkyoo dónai surú n? (= Totie-tyan―ítu gakkoo e ikú no ka; benkyoo dónna ni surú no ka)

Genitive の, p.265: "Before a consonant the vowel of nó will sometimes optionally drop, as in boku n[o] tokoro 'my place' (cf. boku n[o u]ti 'my house' with more drastic reductions); after a final -n the dropping of the vowel will necessitate further reduction to nothing at all, since the sequence -nnC- is not permitted:

... ókusan [no] tokoro 'madam's house'. But sometimes you will come across an ellipsis of the genitive nó that is not to be explained in that way: sikyokú-tyoo [no] | taku ni denwa o site 'making a phone call to the residence of the branch manager' signals ...

... the ellipsis by a minor juncture before taku 'residence' when read aloud, but if you see it in print you might mistakenly take it for a compound noun *sikyokutyóo-taku or *sikyokutyoo-taku if you were unaware that compound nouns of that particular type do not occur in the standard language.

Sorry my 'a' key is broken! And sorry for the ローマ字! I thought this time I'd leave it as-is because I wasn't sure how to render a couple bits in Japanese writing (where the brackets go through the middle of kana etc.)

The constraint against -nnC- has been noted by a number of people, I think, which is why you get するのだ　→　するんだ　→　*すんんだ　→　すんだ with the third step unattested

Ah, um,

He explains about junctures in the very beginning of the book

In chapter 0

Top of page 18

If it's on Google Books

Phew, that saved me some typing on this broken keyboard ;-)

Rest well!

Sorry if the ローマ字 hurt your eyes! ;-)

Pepper? :-)

@DariusJahandarie Well, dictionaries back up the formality bit at least. 明鏡 says: 「友達」よりも改まった言い方。 And 類語例解辞典 says about the same thing.

I've also had the impression that 友人 could mean a closer friend

Since I think sometimes it's used outside of formal situations, and when it is it seems different from 友達

I usually don't answer questions like that one myself, but...

I do think that although all the dictionary mentions is formality it seems a little different to me besides that

明鏡 actually defines 友人 as 親しく対等に交わっている人。朋友。

広辞苑 and 日国 both define it as ともだち。朋友。 with no elaboration

集英社 defines it as ともだち。友(とも)。

岩波 defines it as ともだち

明鏡 is my favorite 国語辞典 :-)

親しくつきあっている人。友人。友。

Hehe!

The Kenkyusha Basic English-Japanese dictionary says 友人 is somewhat more formal than 友達 and is not used by young children

I haven't found a single dictionary that clearly states 友人 can give the impression of a closer friendship than 友達

But even before I read your answer I had the same impression

I wonder what other people have to say

@DariusJahandarie Yeah, that makes sense to me too

Since I think 友人 is often used just to mean 友達 where it's more appropriate in terms of register

I also found this on Google: okwave.jp/qa/q6298418.html