Question of the Week
Sunday June 4, 2006
How do you use "~ san," "~ kun" and "~ chan"?
Discuss
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Comments
Very smart with the comments feature. I hope it works out!
The information regarding “~san” “~kun” and “~chan” is useful, and thank you. I’m also wondering about the proper usage for “~sama,” as well as when it’s appropriate to use “~sensei.” Also, what does one use for a person who is deceased?
San is for girls as well as polite way to say someone’s name, such as Mr. Ms. Mrs. or Miss. Chan is used for a friend or a young child, more of a fem, cute way of saying someones name. Kun is used for boys.
~san, ~kun, and ~chan are all forms of endearment in Japanese spoken language.
As far as i know it is like this:
San is kinda general you use, used for buys and girls.
Chan is indeed for girls, mostly when you know her very well like your sister or good friend or lover etc.
sensei means teacher so against your teacher you use sensei
Sama is kinda not common for me to hear, my Japanese teacher doesnt want use to use it but as far as i know sama is used again people that have a higher rank than you, like royals etc.
this is what i know.
Kun is the male version of chan.
san is basicly the japanese version of mr. ,ms., and mrs.
chan is normally used for childern on female family members
kun is used for boys
sama is used if you have respect for that person
senshi is used for teachers
sempai is used when addressing an upperclassman
kohai is used when addressing a lowerclassman
-san is a generic term of respect for a person you don’t know very well, or a neighbor. In general, it’s used when you don’t know the social position of someone, or someone who is approximately equal to you socially. -san is completely gender-neutral, so it can be used equally well towards men or women. However, you will seldom see it used except towards or between adults.
-chan is almost exclusively used towards children (especially girls), or sometimes as a term of endearment between people who are “close”; much more often between girls than between a girl and a boy, unless they’re very close in a familial or intimate sense. You will almost never see a boy referred to with -chan unless he’s significantly younger than the speaker.
-kun is usually used towards young boys. It also sees use towards a subordinate in a hierarchical sense (such as in the military towards a lower-ranked officer, or towards a lower-ranked instructor).
-sempai, as indicated above, means “upperclassman”, so you’ll most often see it used at school, or in a teaching environment (so it also sees use in martial arts dojos).
–kohai means “underclassman”, and is used in the same situations as -sempai (except in reverse).
–sensei is used towards teachers or doctors or the like. It shows quite a bit of respect.
–sama means “lord”, so you often don’t see it used in modern Japanese. It is sometimes used to show that the speaker considers that person much higher in status than they are.
–dono is a term of extreme respectfulness and humility. It’s almost never used in modern Japanese, but it is in effect saying that you are far lower in status than the person you are talking to, even more than -sama.
Finally, to refer to someone with no suffix means one of two things. Either you have an extremely close relationship with the person, or you are incredibly rude.