by XHunter » Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:59 am
Sama usally is used to refer to someone as ether Lord or King
Example
Japanese: Yama-Sama
English: King Yama
(YuYu Hakusho Reference)
Japanese: Sesshomaru-Sama
English: Lord Sesshomaru
(Inuyashs Reference)
So take your pick. You ether called AGF-Antoine, King AGF or Lord AGF.
Japanese Titles
San
San (さん, 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. Likewise, this suffix is sometimes applied to animals—a rabbit might be usagi-san.
Note: Han (はん, Han?) is the Kyoto and, more widely, Kansai dialect's equivalent of san.
Kun
Kun (君, Kun?) is an informal and intimate honorific primarily used towards males (It is still used towards females, but rarely.) It is used by persons of senior status in addressing those of junior status, by males of roughly the same age and status when addressing each other, and by anyone in addressing male children. In business settings, women, particularly young women, may also be addressed as kun by older males of senior status. It is sometimes used towards male pets as well.
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 the use of san when addressing adults. In other words, not using kun would be considered rude in most situations, but, like san for members of one's own family, kun is traditionally not used when addressing one's own son (unless kun is part of a nickname: "Akira-kun"—Akkun) or when referring to one's own child in conversations with others.
In the Diet of Japan, diet members and ministers are called kun by the chairpersons. For example, Jun'ichirō Koizumi is called "Koizumi Jun'ichirō-kun". The only exception was that when Takako Doi was the chairperson of the lower house, she used the san title.
Chan
Chan (ちゃん, Chan?) is the hypocoristic suffix, used to refer to children, animals, and people whom one has known since they were children. To use chan for adults whom one has not known since their childhood requires considerable intimacy, less for women than for men. Furthermore, attaching chan to a modified stem is more intimate than attaching it to the full form of the basic name. Chan may also used for celebrities as a title of affection. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger gained the nickname Shuwa chan in Japanese. Although traditionally honorifics are not applied to oneself, some young women occasionally develop the habit of referring 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. Chan is also used for pets' names and when referring to animals, such as usagi-chan (or, more frequently, usa-chan: rabbit+chan) (e.g. Tama-chan, the flying turtle in Love Hina), or when speaking to small children.
Non-standard variations of chan include chin (ちん, chin?), and tan (たん, tan?). This last is also the popular suffix for moé anthropomorphisms, which are artistic memes on Japanese imageboards wherein a female character, usually in a kind of cosplay, is drawn to represent an inanimate object or popular consumer product. Part of the humor of this personification comes from the personality ascribed to the character (often satirical) and the sheer arbitrariness of identifying a variety of machines, objects, and even physical places as cute.
Famous examples include the OS-tan (representing computer operating systems) and Bisuke-tan (representing KFC biscuits). Some characters such as Binchō-tan are actual mascots of companies.
The Japanese media use chan when mentioning pre-elementary school children and sometimes elementary-school girls.
Senpai and kōhai
Senpai (先輩, Senpai?) is used by students to refer to or address senior students in an academic or other learning environment, in athletics and sports clubs, and also in business settings to refer to those in more senior positions. Kōhai (後輩, Kōhai?) is the reverse of this. It is used to refer to or address juniors, though it might be considered somewhat insulting or overly condescending in some circles to refer to someone as kōhai directly.
Sensei
Sensei (先生, Sensei?) (derived from Mandarin Chinese xiān shēng, meaning Mister) 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 used 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 of such leaders, 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. A further, similar use is to address or refer to someone who acts in a self-important or -aggrandizing manner.
Sama
Sama (様, 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 appears in words used to address or speak of persons or objects for which the speaker wishes to show respect or deference, such as okyaku-sama (customer) or Tateishi-sama (a stone revered as a deity). Additionally, Japanese Christians will refer to God in prayer as Kami-sama. People will also affix sama to the names of personages who have a special talent or are considered particularly attractive, though this usage can also be tongue-in-cheek, exaggerated, or even ironic. Examples include "Tanaka-sama" to refer to a young man named Tanaka who is considered rather handsome by his admirers and the "Leo-Sama" (or "Reo-sama") that has become the media's pet name for Leonardo DiCaprio. Further, sama can be used to express arrogance (or self-effacing irony), such as in the arrogant male pronoun ore-sama ("my esteemed self") for "I". Referring to oneself with -sama is considered to be highly egotistical.
Sama also follows the addressee's name on postal packages and letters and is frequently seen in business e-mails.
It is worth noting that the sama appearing in such set phrases as o-machidō sama ("sorry to keep you waiting"), o-tsukare sama (an expression of empathy for people who have been working long and hard), and go-kuro sama (an expression recognizing someone's labors), though written with the same kanji, is etymologically and semantically distinct from the sama used as term of address.
In the same way that chan is a version of san, there is also chama from sama, typically used for an older person.
Shi
Shi (氏, Shi?) is used in formal writing, and sometimes in very formal speech, for referring to a person who is unfamiliar to the speaker, typically a person known through publications whom the speaker has never actually 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. 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.
Thank you very much AGF-sama!You build up my confidence on continuing on my Dark Chest of Wonders AMV!
