owlmoose | Japanese question

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Japanese question

So I started Fruits Basket (just a few pages in, but it's definitely promising). I know people have explained this to me before, but I'm already getting lost with all the forms of address in Japanese. My understanding is that -san denotes respect and -chan denotes affection (and I realize I'm probably missing all sorts of nuances there), but what does -kun mean? Are there others I need to remember?

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-San is generally polite. Sans -San means ... either rudeness or close friends, depending on the context.

-Chan is affection, usually towards girls (If you were addressing someone as "Little Suzie," and meant it as a compliment). As such, -Chan towards boys happens, but is giggle-worthy or an intended insult.

-Kun is a term of affection towards a boy who is a close friend, usually from a girl, but not always. It is also very hard to get away with properly, or so I've been told.

In addition, -Sama is a clear-cut better ("My Lord"), or flattery.

^ My limited scholarly experience. I have no actual speaking experience, so I may be very wrong.

Thanks! Very useful summary. Isn't -Sama what Braska was called in the original Japanese script for FFX? I remember hearing that somewhere.

I find this whole page pretty interesting, it includes -chan and -kun:

http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/culture-notes.html#address

The usage of -kun I know is the one given there - a superior to a young man, but secondarily a young man (usually) from other young people. But I'm no expert. :)

Great link, thanks!

-Kun is being used in the latter sense in the manga I'm reading, since it's set in a high school. I guess it makes sense that it would translate. It's interesting, how all the forms of address showcase gender dynamics: the girls call each other -chan and the boys -kun, while the boys call pretty much everyone -san, male and female.

-san is typically generic usage. In my Japanese class, all the students were addressed as their last name + san, as in Smith-san or the like.

-chan and -kun are diminuitive forms. -chan is used towards females and children, while -kun is used for males, usually younger than, close to, or inferior to (in social position) than the speaker.

Usually, any title that denotes respect will be used in place of 'san'. A doctor or teacher will be referred to as 'sensei,' for example, instead of -san, and someone's superior at work will be referred to by their title.

If memory from Japanese class serves.

Thanks for the info! :) -Kun is being used pretty generally for boys in the manga, although mostly by girls, which I think is probably telling as far as language and gender dynamcs go. Interesting stuff.

You might run into -sempai, too. It's what someone uses (in the case of a high school manga like you're reading) for a lowerclassmen to refer to a upperclassmen. (Like a freshman would call a senior, Smith-sempai.

And, yeah, they called Braska, Braska-sama, in FFX. Interesting they called the Maesters like Seymour are called -sama plus another title (roshi, i think?) to show how respected they are.

In Yuugiou, aka Yugioh, Yuugi calls just about all his male friends their last name + kun. Jounouchi-kun, Kaiba-kun, etc., so yeah, I think of it as a friendly male teen-to-teen greeting. (Kaiba, of course, calls no one by -kun and all his employees as well as brother use -sama for him...)

Yeah, sempai came up, although it was used on its own, not as suffix. More like a title. But this manga is very newbie-friendly and it defined the term in a footnote.

Thanks! :)

Oooh, pick me, pick me!

-san : generic politeness. Mr., Miss., Ms. Like in English, it's more formal when paired with the surname, but unlike English, it doesn't sound weird next to the first name (Miss Arashi versus Arashi-san).

-chan : an affectionate dimunitive used on small children and girls; most boys above the age of ten would be put off to have it used on them. It gives a "cute" feeling to the name, which not everyone likes. Yuzuriha is refered to as Yuzuriha-chan, Hokuto is Hokuto-chan. Arashi would be embarrassed to be called such.

You *can* use it on boys, but you'd better be close to them, and they still might find it embarrassing. Consider, though, that Sorata's favourite way of introducing himself is "Sora-chan," and he refers to himself as such when joking around; Seishirou in Tokyo Babylon is called "Sei-chan" by Hokuto. It depends on the closeness of the relationship and the sense and humor of the boy; Sorata probably would be put off if someone called him that seriously.

-sama : super polite -san. It can be translated as "lord" or "lady," and usually is, but there's a higher level word for that which works better. It's super polite, though, which is all you need to know.

-dono : Lord or Lady. This can be used in less formal contexts, but it's the most polite honorific you're likely to run into.

-kun : Kun is actually really complicated. The other commenters are right in saying it's a diminuitive used on boys, but that's not all; it's also a less formal version of -san, depending on context. A woman might call her male co-workers [surname]-kun; she's being polite but still showing herself as equal level to them. A girl might be called [name]-kun (in fact, in Furuba, several people call Tohru "Tohru-kun"), which isn't affectionate, just a slightly more casual way of saying "Tohru-san."

But it *can* be used affectionately on boys (mostly); Aoki uses "Kamui-kun," and several people refer to Sorata as "Sorata-kun." They're being polite, but still showing that they like them - -kun is complicated, though, so don't sweat it much. Just remember that it's a less formal "-san," and can be used as an affectionate diminutive.

In Furuba, you also might see "senpai" and "kohai" - those simply mean "upperclassman" and "underclassman," respectively.

There's also - and this is actually the most important - the *lack* of honorific. In Japanese, to call someone by no honorifics at all implies a certain closeness to the person (or rudeness). So Kamui going around using no honorifics implies his sort of rude speech patterns; Sorata calling Arashi by her first name only implies that they are in a very close *cough* relationship. Understandably, not everyone feels comfortable being addressed as such, especially by people they aren't so close to.

There's also the difference between first name and surname, which is similiar - not everyone feels comfortable calling the other by first names, but of course it depends on their personal speech patterns as well. Tohru uses "Sohma" on Yuki, so he'd be surprised if she suddenly called him "Yuki," but Kyo - being a relative and rude to Yuki - just uses "Yuki".

:D

Thanks for all the details. I finished volume 2 of Fruits Basket last night and I did notice that people kept calling Tohru "Tohru-kun" and wondered at it.

I take it back on the boys, they are calling each other -kun, although not as much as the girls do.

That's a gender inequality thing; you see it in Japanese businesses, too. A man will call a woman of equal position [surname], and a woman will call a man of equal position [surname]-kun. It's slightly more polite, which is why you see women using it more than men.

Among male friends, you see -kun, that's when it becomes a dimunitive. That is, a guy using -kun on another guy, you can take to be mildly affectionate (or friendly, rather). But when a girl uses -kun on a guy, unless they are friends, it implies more that she's being polite than friendly. A girl using -kun on another girl is also better taken as "standard politeness."

In X, Seishirou uses kun on Subaru; this is more condesending than friendly, though, considering their past history - it's the exception to the rule. Consider calling your enemy "miss" or "mr."

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With X explanations since you know the characters:

Re: With X explanations since you know the characters:

See, this is what I spend my time obsessing about.