Hi,
I am texting with a Japanese person, who is the same age as me, mid 20s, and we have a common friend. He’s kind enough to help me practice my Japanese.
After I asked him “旭さんの苗字は？それで、なんて呼べばいいですか”, he told me “苗字は佐藤です。でもあさひと呼んでください”
Does this mean he’d like to be called あさひ or あさひさん? Since we’ve chatted barely for more than 20 messages, I guess あさひさん/旭さんの is more suiting. Also since using “your own name + さん” would sound off.
Also, should I use his name in hiragana or kanji, since he wrote it in hiragana? Is this also a preference or could it be that he just wanted to be sure I got the message.
Thank you in advance!
Note: the names are changed for anonymity purposes.
Update: Thank you for the answers everyone. I didn’t wanna make it weird for him by asking explicitly if I can just 呼び捨て. ended up waiting for him to drop the さん and it was smooth sailing after that. We’ve dropped the keigo after a couple of more messages.
by Vadzianyk