Show 566 Friday 30 November

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today I’m going to talk about Japanese titles, like san. Even if you know nothing about Japanese you’ve probably heard of Daniel-san from The Karate Kid.

There are a lot of titles or honorifics in Japanese. Some of the common ones are: san, chan, kun, senpai, sensei, sama.

And it’s really complicated when to use them. It took me ages to get my head around it, and I still don’t fully understand it. Because it’s not like, OK, kun for boys and chan for girls ... it’s like, well, kun is usually for males but it can be used for females in this situation ...

Since I’ve been in Japan I mostly get called Sarah-san which is pretty standard or Sarah-sensei when I’m teaching – even though I usually try and get students to call me just Sarah or 沙羅, because that’s English style.

And some people call me Sarah-chan which I think is nice. I quite like being called Sarah-chan.

Anyway, this isn’t The Daily Japanese Show so I’m not going to go on about it too much – but I think it’s an interesting language issue and today’s news is about the use of chan.

If you’re interested in finding out more, have a read of the Wikipedia entry – it gives a pretty good explanation I think. I found out some new things when I read it and I learnt some new English words too, because they use some pretty formal words.

Check this out, this is part of what they say about sensei:

Sensei can also be used fawningly, as evinced by adherents in addressing or talking about charismatic business, political, and religious leaders (especially unordained ones). Japanese speakers will also use the term sarcastically to ridicule overblown or fawning adulation of such leaders, and the Japanese media frequently invoke it (rendered in katakana, akin to scare quotes or italics in English) to highlight the megalomania of those who allow themselves to be sycophantically addressed with the term.

That’s interesting, I didn’t know about the use of sensei, like that. And I didn’t know half of those English words. But I looked them up and now I do. Nice.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today a professor in Japan had his salary cut after he harassed a student by adding “chan” to her name.

Wikipedia says chan, Chan is a diminutive suffix used to address children and female family members.
It may also be used towards animals, lovers, intimate friends, and people whom one has known since childhood.
From September to November last year a professor at the University of Yamanashi in Japan addressed a student adding chan to her name.
The university received a complaint from the student.
The university decided the professors’ behaviour constituted harassment by a superior and they cut his salary by 10,704 yen for one month.

And that was Stick News for Friday the 30th of November.
Kia Ora.

Friday Joke

A woman is on trial for shoplifting. She is sitting in the courtroom next to her husband.
The judge says to her, “I’m going to have to make an example of you, what did you steal?”
She says, “I stole a can of peaches.”
The judge asks, “How many peaches were there in the can?”
“Five,” she answers.
The judge says, “I’m going to give you five years.”
The woman starts to cry.
And suddenly her husband jumps up and says, “Your honour, last week she stole a can of peas!”

I got today's joke from here. I changed it a bit because a. I can't imagine sweet potatoes coming in a can, and b. I can't imagine there being 11 sweet potatoes in a can!

conversations with sarah
#345 What was the name of your party?

Step 1: Repeat Paul’s lines.
Step 2: Read Paul’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Sarah I remembered this cool thing we did in social studies.

Paul What?

Sarah We had to make groups and then we made political parties and we had an election.

Paul Cool. Sounds like fun.

Sarah Yeah, it was awesome. And our group won – by a lot, it was a total landslide.

Paul What was the name of your party?

Sarah Nu Generation –spelt n-u, I think.

Paul Cool.

Sarah Yeah, we really got into it. We made a rap and recorded it on video – I wonder if anyone still has a copy of that – that would be hilarious. And we made like, t-shirts and bandannas with our logo, and we made information packs and gave them to people.

Paul What were your election promises?

Sarah Oh, I can’t remember. I remember our logo was like, a peace sign with a cannabis leaf, which is so dodgy when I think about it now.

notes

to get one's head around something (idiom) = to understand something

to go on about something (idiom) = to talk a lot about something

links

today's STICK NEWS

today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: Anawin
album: A glimpse inside the bubble
track: Little jazzy
from: Arles, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

friday joke start
artist: AdHoc
album: Toutes directions
track: Sumbala
from: Annecy, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
tracks: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: OPRACHINA
album: The jazz farm
track: blu
from: Roma, Italy
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
YouTube channel

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