I've noticed lately that I like to borrow a lot of words from other languages. My favorites are French, Korean, and Japanese although I've been caught speaking Spanish and Portugese too. (You might even count Shakespearian! I have to memorize a quote from Romeo and Juliet) I love Romeo and Juliet purely because my name is Julia, or Julie. It makes for a lot of entertaining circumstances. Anyway, I've always called people mon ami, or my friend en Francais. (In French) I'm also watching a lot of animes (Japanese) so I'll randomly say Nii-chan or Onee-san. They both mean older brother, but there's about a million ways of saying it. The endings depend on multiple different situations, explained below. Although honorifics are an important part of Japanese, you don't record it when you are writing or typing someone's name. Here's some of the most common honorifics and their meanings:
San-(さん) Is the most common honorific, and its used between equals of almost any age. You would call your classmate Jessica-san, and a distant relative could also be addressed with it. If you use san with an animal name, it is the equivelant of Mrs or Mr and is deemed childish. For ex: usagi-san. (Mr. rabbit)
Sama-(様) The same as san, only more honorable. You might use this to address an elder, or a higher co-worker.
Chan-(ちゃん) Is an endearing honorific, and is mostly used for intimate relationships or teenage girls. It can also be used for a cute animal, but to use it on someone higher than you would be very disrespectful. Also, some girls drop the -ko at the end of their name and add -chan instead; for ex: Kanako becomes Kana-Chan.
Bō-(坊) Is the equivalent of chan, only it's used exclusively for boys and is much rarer.
San-(さん) Is the most common honorific, and its used between equals of almost any age. You would call your classmate Jessica-san, and a distant relative could also be addressed with it. If you use san with an animal name, it is the equivelant of Mrs or Mr and is deemed childish. For ex: usagi-san. (Mr. rabbit)
Sama-(様) The same as san, only more honorable. You might use this to address an elder, or a higher co-worker.
Chan-(ちゃん) Is an endearing honorific, and is mostly used for intimate relationships or teenage girls. It can also be used for a cute animal, but to use it on someone higher than you would be very disrespectful. Also, some girls drop the -ko at the end of their name and add -chan instead; for ex: Kanako becomes Kana-Chan.
Bō-(坊) Is the equivalent of chan, only it's used exclusively for boys and is much rarer.
Kun-(君) Is used to address under-classmen, or students. For teenagers to use this term is almost always disrespectful.
Senpai-(先輩) Is used to address those in higher grades than you, and is slightly less honorable than sama. You would never adress a teacher or a political figure by senpai. Also, it is pronounced sempai.
Sensei-(先生) Is the most honorable of honorifics, and is used to address teachers, politicians, and people who have reached a certain degree in an art. It's most commonly used in America to refer to the head of a dojo.
There's a lot of other honorifics, but I won't bore you by listing every single one. Now do you see why Japanese is so very difficult? I also have a wide vocabulary of Japanese words, but lets move on to Korean. The most prominent words I know is a sentence I learned at the Boys and Girls Club, from a Korean exchange student.
바보 개 고물 사과나무 It sounds like: Pabo mung-mungi bongu sagwa-namu. Or in English: Stupid dog pooped on an apple tree. Don't know why I know this exact sentence, but I do know that it's not fluent and it's literally stupid dog poop apple tree.
So if I randomly exclaim some odd sounding sentence, don't mind me- it's probably just a French swear word. Or if I call you some weird name, look it up later. (By the way I'm still just an étudiants, so if I screw up just let me know :D)
P.S. I have no idea why it did that weird formatting/different size print thing. I promise you I only copy-pasted the kanji, so don't judge s'il vous plait.
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