Japanese Lesson (3) Prefixes

For those that are familiar, when you're watching an anime series, you almost always cannot miss prefixes such as "san," "chan," "kun," etc. at the end of someone's name
For this reason, these will be explained.
To start, calling a person's name plainly is considered very rude unless you are close to this person. Of course this is somewhat true when you are in the U.S., but this goes a bit more deeper. This can even go beyond courtesy, but part of the culture.
Next, prefixes in the Japanese culture is always used at the end of the noun. This includes people, animals, objects, and the like. That aside, let us now define the prefixes.

• -san is the unisex prefix. Using "-san" (sounds like 'SAHn') is pretty standard and is often used. It's pretty much equivalent to calling someone Mr. or Miss or Mrs. I'd like to call it the safe prefix that can be used on anyone.
• -chan is the more feminine prefix. "-chan" (sounds like 'CHAHn") is used on children mostly. It's also ok to use it on girls and people who you are close to. Not a good idea to use on males being that it sounds more condescending though I have heard it used between guy-guy friends.
• "-kun" is more used on males though I have heard it used on females just more rare.
• "-sama" is the royalty type of prefix. This prefix is something that is used on royalty or like a servant to a master/mistress. I have heard it by females using it on their crushes as well.
• plainly saying their name is reserved for usually lovers or someone you are just real close to.

Conclusions: using prefixes indicates what sort of relationship you're in with someone so use them well.

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