Native Japanese speakers: do you find it cringy or weird when works written in English still use honorifics?

10 comments

1. Not native but pretty close. Can you give an example sentence? I’ve read plenty of Japanese literature in translation and in Japanese, and I’ve, on one or two occasions where the text is Meiji era, encountered sort of formal language to indicate that honorifics were being used, but it just made the characters sound like old British people. If the book is written in modern day Japan, I’d find it weird if the characters’ English sounded like anything other than normal English. Unless the characters were in a business meeting for example, in which case I think it’s ok to add some extra formalities to match the tone of Japanese business settings.

2. Not really. Honorifics show the relationship between characters so I would personally like it. It’s probably more weird for me to read a Japanese person calling another older person by their first name.

3. [deleted]

4. I don’t know what this is can you show an example?

5. In RL formal settings this is done as a courtesy. Not just Japanese but also things like calling French people Monsieur/Madame and Germans Herr/Frau, in an English-speaking context.

6. There seems to be some confusion about the question. Here’s an example of what OP is talking about.

   https://imgur.com/a/VI9Vh3X

   (From the novel Shogun)

7. My anecdote – When speaking English I still have to write my coworkers name w honorifics and similar in university , workers in international office still wrote -san after people’s names

8. I feel that the average native speaker appreciates it when you use -san or -sama when referring to a Japanese person. But I’ve always felt that it’s racist as a native Japanese speaker. In Japanese we use these honorifics irrespectively of whether the referent is Japanese.

   In a fiction like the one that OP suggests, the only reason to use these honorifics seems to be a) that the referent is Japanese; or b) that the speaker is Japanese.

   A is different from the original usage: it’s not a marker that the referent is Japanese. It’s an honorifics for everyone.

   B is something akin to what is called キャラ語尾, certain forms attached at the end of a character’s speech that indicates whose line it is in a fiction. When it’s applied to a certain race, ethnicity, or nationality, though, it is usually considered racist.

9. Just say you’re writing Naruto fanfic

10. I think it determines the relationship a lot better than English honorifics do. “Mr. Tanaka” had a very different feel than “Tanaka-sensei”. And you can’t say “teacher Tanaka” or “author Tanaka” in English without it sounding choppy and odd.