Originally posted by: Deadfire
Originally posted by: banggendi
i just wanna ask, what does kun,chan means! they added this word after the names, like naruto-kun
It's a part of their langange it's marking their position compared to the speaker
Correct use of titles is considered very important in Japan. Calling somebody by just their name, without adding a title, is called yobisute literally "call and throw away", and is considered very bad manners unless the person has given you permission.
Although titles are usually added to names, there are some exceptions. They are not usually used when talking about a family member, or another member of one's "in-group", to someone from outside the group. Inside a group such as a company, the members use titles such as san towards each other. However, when talking to people from outside their company, they do not use the titles when referring to each other. This applies even to superiors. For example, the receptionist, when talking to the company president, will certainly use a title such as shachM or Maeda-sama. However, when referring to the president when talking to outsiders, the same receptionist will simply refer to Maeda, without any title. Honorific titles are also usually dropped when referring to historical figures, although awarded titles, such as military titles, are sometimes used.
San
San is the most common honorific title, used when addressing most social outsiders, for example, non-family members. San is used unless the addressee's status warrants one of the other terms mentioned below.
San is often translated as "Mr.", "Ms.", "Mrs.", and the like. San may also be used in combination with things other than the name of the person being addressed. For example, a bookseller might be addressed as honya-san "Mr. Bookseller", and a butcher as nikuya-san "Ms. Butcher".
San is also used when talking about entities such as companies. For example, the offices or shop of a company called Kojima denki might be referred to as "Kojima Denki-san" by another nearby company. This may be seen on the small maps often used in phone books and business cards in Japan, where the names of surrounding companies are written using san.
San is also applied to some kinds of foods. For example, fish used for cooking are sometimes referred to as sakana-san. It is also sometimes applied to animals - a rabbit might be usagi-san.
Both san and its more formal equivalent, sama, imply a kind of familiarity. In formal speech, the title shi may be preferred.
Kun
Kun is an informal and intimate honorific primarily used for males. It is used by superiors in addressing inferiors, by males of roughly the same age and status in addressing each other, and in addressing male children. In business settings young women may also be addressed as kun by older male superiors.
Schoolteachers typically address male students using kun, while female students are addressed as san or chan. The use of kun to address male children is similar to san when addressing the boy's parents. Not using kun would be considered rude, but, like san for one's own family, kun is traditionally not used when addressing one's own children.
In the Diet of Japan, diet members and ministers are called kun by the chairpersons. For example, Junichiro Koizumi is called "Koizumi Jun'ichirM-kun". The only exception is that when Takako Doi was the chairperson of the lower house, she used the san title.
Chan
Chan is the informal, intimate, diminutive equivalent of san, used to refer to children and female family members, close friends and lovers. Chan is also used for adults as a title of affection. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger gained the nickname Shuwa chan in Japanese. Similar to kun, chan is not necessarily optional when referring to the female children of others, and it is often avoided when referring to one's own children.
Chan is sometimes applied to male children if the name does not fit with the kun suffix. For example, a boy called "Tetsuya" will be nicknamed "Tetchan" rather than "Tekkun" for reasons more to do with phonetics than anything else.
Although it is usually said that honorifics are not applied to oneself, some women refer to themselves in the third person using chan. For example, a young woman named Maki might call herself Maki-chan rather than using a first person pronoun like watashi. Chan is also used for pets and animals, such as usagi-chan.
In the same way that chan is a version of san, there is also chama from sama, typically used for an older person. Non-standard variations of chan include chin (a“, chin?), and tan (_“, tan?).
Senpai and kMhai
Senpai is used by students to refer to or address senior students in an academic or other learning environment, or in athletics and sports clubs, and also in business settings to refer to those in more senior positions. KMhai is the reverse of this. It is used to refer to or address juniors.
Sensei
Sensei is used to refer to or address teachers, practitioners of a profession such as doctors and lawyers, politicians, and other authority figures. It is used to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill. For example, Japanese manga fans refer to manga artists using the term sensei, as in Takahashi sensei for manga artist Rumiko Takahashi; the term is used similarly by fans of other creative professionals such as novelists, musicians, and artists. It is also a common martial arts title when referring to the instructor.
Sensei can also be using fawningly, as evinced by adherents in addressing or talking about charismatic business, political, and religious leaders (especially unordained ones). Japanese speakers will also use the term sarcastically to ridicule overblown or fawning adulation, and the Japanese media frequently invoke it (rendered in katakana, akin to scare quotes or italics in English) to highlight the megalomania of those who allow themselves to be sycophantically addressed with the term.
Sama
Sama is the formal version of san. This honorific is used primarily in addressing persons much higher in rank than oneself, and in commercial and business settings to address and refer to customers. It also forms parts of set phrases such as okyaku-sama (customer) or omachidM-sama ("I am sorry to keep you waiting"). Sama also follows the addressee's name on postal packages and letters.
Sama is also often used for people considered to have some high ability or be particularly attractive. If a young man is considered particularly handsome, he might be referred to as Tanaka-sama rather than Tanaka-san by his female admirers. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio has gained the nickname Leo-sama in Japan.
Sama is also used in an arrogant context, as in the arrogant male pronoun ore-sama, "my esteemed self", meaning "I".
Shi
Shi is used in formal writing, and sometimes in very polite speech, for referring to a person who is unfamiliar to the speaker, typically a person who the speaker has never met. For example, the shi title is common in the speech of newsreaders. It is preferred in legal documents, academic journals, and certain other formal written styles because of the familiarity which "san" or "sama" imply. Once a person's name has been used with shi, the person can be referred to with shi alone, without the name, as long as there is only one person being referred to.
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