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10-29-2004, 08:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-29-2004, 08:21 PM by sachi.)
I'm so confused with this concept. In textbooks or whatnot everything seems to be very plain and laid out,
but in real life, what is proper?
Is -kun proper for a guy older than you, and up to how much older is
proper? Is this the kind of thing that depends on what kind of relationship you have with the person?
Same with -chan. Can this be used with a girl that is older?
For now, I just stick to -san
except for one of my closer guy-friends, because I really don't know
Just so you can understand my situation a little better, I'm 19
currently, and the people that I work with are ranging from 21-50, both male and female.
Thank
you!!
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10-29-2004, 09:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-29-2004, 09:18 PM by SWC.)
-chan is
normally used for girls younger than you.
-kun is normally used for boys your age or younger, however my
friend's wife (who is younger than him) always refers to him as Joe-kun.
-san should be used if you
are referring to an older person...or someone you want to show respect to and/or you don't know their age.
(Just to be safe...if you don't know...I would use "san").
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<!--QuoteBegin-SWC+Oct 29 2004, 11:16 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SWC @ Oct 29 2004, 11:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> -chan is normally used for girls younger than you.
-kun is normally used
for boys your age or younger, however my friend's wife (who is younger than him) always refers to him as
Joe-kun.
-san should be used if you are referring to an older person...or someone you want to show
respect to and/or you don't know their age. (Just to be safe...if you don't know...I would use
"san"). [/quote]
Hm. Thanks
for the help, guys.
But what is "same age"?? Because I have some friends that are 20, 21, 26.
I call my twenty-year-old friend "...-kun" and he doesn't seem to be weirded out, so I guess
that's alright?
Haha I guess they don't expect much since I don't look particularly Japanese
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10-29-2004, 10:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-29-2004, 10:02 PM by SWC.)
<!--QuoteBegin-sachi+Oct 29 2004, 01:54 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sachi @ Oct 29 2004, 01:54 PM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-SWC+Oct 29 2004, 11:16 AM--></div><table border='0'
align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SWC @ Oct 29 2004,
11:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> -chan is normally used for girls younger than
you.
-kun is normally used for boys your age or younger, however my friend's wife (who is younger
than him) always refers to him as Joe-kun.
-san should be used if you are referring to an older
person...or someone you want to show respect to and/or you don't know their age. (Just to be safe...if you
don't know...I would use "san"). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div
class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm. Thanks for the help, guys.
But what is "same
age"?? Because I have some friends that are 20, 21, 26. I call my twenty-year-old friend
"...-kun" and he doesn't seem to be weirded out, so I guess that's alright?
Haha I
guess they don't expect much since I don't look particularly Japanese ![[Image: tongue.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div
class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If your friend(s) are okay with it...then don't worry about it
Sachi-chan. I call my friend Jon "mother f*cker all the time...he doesn't seem to mind (ha,ha,ha!)
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It's really strange that bucho's (manager type people) in companies call anybody below them kun, eg.
"Sachiko-kun Copy wo tanomu". I think this is the only example when a girl is called kun.
I
always wondered why Japanese people got so excited about meeting someone who is the same age. Have you ever been
in a situation where a Japanese person is asking you those questions, What's your name? What's your
blood type? ( ![[Image: eh.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/eh.gif) ), how old are you? (and guys do they ever ask
you how "big" you are? ![[Image: crazy.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/crazy.gif) ).
If and when you are the same age as them they tend to jump up and
down shouting "tame tame!"
Being the same age means that they don't have to use any keigo and
can talk to you freely. It was strange to me because we don't have this joge kankei( hierarchical
relationship) in western culture.
If you don't add a suffix to a name of someone older/above you it
becomes "yobi-sute" (disrespectful way of calling somone)
Make every moment count!
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10-30-2004, 08:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-30-2004, 08:07 PM by sachi.)
yeah! i was wondering about that too. Because in Fruits Basket (the anime), Touru lives with all guys and
all of them (or some?) called her Touru-kun! I wonder how that happened...
By the way what does
"tame tame" mean??
Yes, i know how Japanese people ask all the questions. when i started
working there, everyone asked me, "what's your name? how old are you? and do you have a
boyfriend??" It's kinda nuts in my work, where everyone tries to matchmake the newbies
From the sound of your experiences in
Japan, it sounds like the speech politeness levels in my work are a lot less fixed. For example, the
non-Japanese speakers at my work call the big boss, "Yoshimi" and one of the new Japanese guys heard
this so he started calling her just "yoshimi" without the -san. ![[Image: crazy.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/crazy.gif) i think she was a little ticked.
by the way, love the (new?) pic
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Oooh
calling someone by just their first name... unheard of in Japanese business (always surname plus san). This
annoys me because there's an Austrlian guy in our company called Angus. Everybody calls him Angus and he has
all the perks of being a gaijin (forgiven for having poor Japanese), whereas I am referred to as Kadoya-san and
am therefore Japanese.
Tame (not the English
word/pronunciation) means same age. Tame guchi is the mode of speech when you are talking to someone your own
age.
And the Karoke pic is not that new, I just thought it captured me in a strange pose
Make every moment count!
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10-31-2004, 11:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-31-2004, 11:13 AM by MiraiZ.)
I
all three at work (chan,san and kun)...there's one guy at work who calls me chan....but my bucho hated
that...he would say "don't let him call you chan! That's so disrespectful!" But I
don' really care...
I'm not a real actor, but I play one on TV.
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<!--QuoteBegin-MiraiZ+Oct 31 2004, 01:12 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MiraiZ @ Oct 31 2004, 01:12 AM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I all three at work (chan,san and kun)...there's one guy at work who calls
me chan....but my bucho hated that...he would say "don't let him call you chan! That's so
disrespectful!" But I don' really care... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div
class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
@mirai:
are u guys close buddies??
one of the older
people in my work (45 or so) is always called ...-chan and she didn't really mind so it just stuck and it
seems it's part of her name. She's Chinese, and her English is better than her Japanese, so I just call
her by her first name. I still can't get myself to call someone that's 26 years older than me
...-chan!!
@daniel:
why don't u like being called kadoya-san?? isn't that a
compliment to the level of your japanese? now that i think about it, most of the people in my work call me by my
english name, because that's what they were used to, but when they put -chan on the end I get all giddy.
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<!--QuoteBegin-SWC+Oct 29 2004, 11:16 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SWC @ Oct 29 2004, 11:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> -chan is normally used for girls younger than you.
-kun is normally used
for boys your age or younger, however my friend's wife (who is younger than him) always refers to him as
Joe-kun.
-san should be used if you are referring to an older person...or someone you want to show
respect to and/or you don't know their age. (Just to be safe...if you don't know...I would use
"san"). [/quote]
This is
definitly true for people you don't know well, but with friends you can play around a bit.
An
ex-boyfriend used to call me "Ota-kun" cuz he thought it funny I guess, and I often call my much
older, male friends "Ko-chan" or "Toku-chan" affectionately.
Of course, it totally
depends on the situation. If a friend calls me Mayuko-san instead of Mayu-chan, it feels cold and formal, but
if someone I don't know well calls me mayu-chan in a formal situation, it can seem condescending. Also, it
can actually be flattering to call an older woman -chan in really casual settings.
Perhaps I've
complicated the question unneccesarily. I think it's best just to see what everyone else calls the person
and follow along.
Kadoya-san, would you really want your colleagues to call you "danyaru?"
That would be kind of rude I would imagine.
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11-01-2004, 01:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-01-2004, 01:16 PM by danielyuki.)
Recently I've been signing all my e-mails ダニエル in the hopes that they
will call me Daniel in the office. I think it is better that way because they won't expect the same thing of
me as they do their native Japanese staff.
I like the way older Japanese ladies prefer being called
oneesan instead of obasan or obachan. My mum would always tell me to call her friends oneesan even if they were
in their 30s
Make every moment count!
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Right
on, bro. You show Angus. So you would rather *not* be considered Japanese? Or you want to be acknowledged as
both? Right on again then.
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This is
quite interesting because me and Mayucat were in a club recently and we started talking to an Australian lady. I
introduced myself as "Daniel" and Mayucat as "Mayuko" (her "real" name). Later on
the lady told us that she thought that I was English and Mayuko was fully Japanese. I think this had a lot to do
with our names being English/Japanese. If I'd introduced myself as Yuki (which I never do) she might have
thought that I was fully Japanese too.
People automatically create an image of you from your name.
That's why I don't want people to create the wrong image of me from my Japanese name.
A similar
phenomenon has been described previously by Kristina Schneider... who is not a blonde German girl
Make every moment count!
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<!--QuoteBegin-danielyuki+Nov 1 2004, 04:58 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (danielyuki @ Nov 1 2004, 04:58 AM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
A similar phenomenon has been described previously by Kristina Schneider...
who is not a blonde German girl ![[Image: happy.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
<!--QuoteEEnd-->
That happened to me, too! My Calculus I professor was from Moscow, Russia. So, I had to
get my midterm regraded and he noticed that my last name was very Russian. He looked at face, then he looked
the name... my face... my name... And he couldn't see the connection so he's said, "You're....
Russian??" and I said "Yeah, I'm a 1/4 Russian" but he just recently came from Moscow, so I
don't think he really understood me. But from then on, I was his favourite student in the class (that's
how I managed to get a B+ even though I hardly understood the material)
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<!--QuoteBegin-sachi+Nov 1 2004, 04:41 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%'
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sachi @ Nov 1 2004, 04:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td
id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-danielyuki+Nov 1 2004, 04:58 AM--></div><table border='0'
align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (danielyuki @ Nov 1
2004, 04:58 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
A similar phenomenon has been described
previously by Kristina Schneider... who is not a blonde German girl ![[Image: happy.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div
class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That happened to me, too! My Calculus I professor was from Moscow,
Russia. So, I had to get my midterm regraded and he noticed that my last name was very Russian. He looked at
face, then he looked the name... my face... my name... And he couldn't see the connection so he's said,
"You're.... Russian??" and I said "Yeah, I'm a 1/4 Russian" but he just recently
came from Moscow, so I don't think he really understood me. But from then on, I was his favourite student in
the class (that's how I managed to get a B+ even though I hardly understood the material)
![[Image: eh.gif]](http://www.halvsie.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/eh.gif) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div
class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I said somewhere (maybe in this topic) that a friend of mine only
recently realised that I am half English (and not 100% Japanese), despite only knowing me as DANIEL SMITH!
Make every moment count!
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