Japanese Language Culture Food - japanese-culture-people-sensei.

Sensei (先生, せんせい, Sensei) - A Japanese title used to refer to or address teachers, professionals such as lawyers and doctors, politicians, clergymen, and other authority figures. It is also used to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill: accomplished novelists, musicians, and artists are addressed with the title in this way; for example, Japanese manga fans refer to manga artist Osamu Tezuka as "Tezuka-sensei." Sensei is also one of the common Japanese martial arts titles.

The Japanese expression sensei shares the same characters as the Chinese word, pronounced xiānshēng in Mandarin. Xiansheng is a courtesy title for a man of respected stature; its English equivalent is gentleman, or more commonly,– mister. It can also be attached to a man's name to mean "Mr." Prior to the development of the modern vernacular, Xiansheng was used to address teachers of both genders; this has fallen out of usage in Standard Mandarin, though it is retained in some southern Chinese dialects such as Hokkien and Hakka where it still has the meaning "teacher" or "doctor". In Japanese, sensei is still used to address people of both genders. It is likely both the current Southern Chinese and Japanese usages are more reflective of its Middle Chinese etymology.

Information source: “Sensei.” wikipedia.org. Article date: 24 Jan. 2008. Retrieved: Wikipedia. 16 Feb. 2008 <Sensei>.


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