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.
5 comments
あさひさん would probably be the most common in that situation. But you could just ask? 「呼び捨てしても大丈夫ですか？」
call them asahi-san.
he will let you know if you can drop the -san later.
100% add the さん!
People don’t apply honorifics to themselves under ordinary circumstances. The fact that this person knows he’s tutoring a foreigner does potentially cloud the issue (someone who realizes that they’re talking to someone without that cultural background and experience might specify exactly what they want to be called the way you’d say it) but I would take this as just an invitation to use his given name, not necessarily an invitation to drop the honorific.
And if he *did* mean to drop the honorific he’ll probably say so when you use it.
Generally, if you’re a foreigner, everyone will tell you to call them by their first name, or maybe last name. They’ll tell you that you don’t need to say さん。and then, you’ll be the ONLY person doing 呼び捨て to them. So yeah, you have their permission, and they probably don’t care… Because you’re foreign. And it’ll be just one more unnatural thing about how you speak Japanese.
If you don’t mind jumping on gaijin track, by all means go for it. If you want to speak the way Japanese people speak, don’t呼び捨て anyone you’ve met since graduating university.