～ちゃん・～さん・～くん・さま: Honorifics

Introduction

As you already know, Japan has several levels of formality, and this isn’t only expressed with verb conjugations. You can also express different levels of formality by adding honorifics after people’s names. You might have even already come across a few of them in past example sentences like さん or ちゃん! And for the anime and manga lovers out there, I know you know what 「先輩せんぱい」 is.

So let’s take a break from grammar for this one and just talk about these name-enders! After all, these are pretty important if you wanna be able to flex demonstrate your Japanese.

Honorifics: why tho?

When addressing someone, honorifics attached to the end of a person’s name show them respect and courtesy—but not only that. Sometimes these can be a term of endearment. They’re like the “Mr.” and “Ms.” of the Japanese language, only more elaborate.