OK, most likely her name was Sutaa instead of Suta. Sutaa is a kirakira name (literally “sparkle” name) coming from the Japanese pronunication of the English loan word “star”.
Although not to the extent of the Japanese, the same can be true in French. That is that you use Vous instead Tu. Both mean you, like would you like some tea? But you usually would start by using Vous instead of Tu, until the relationship progresses (and there can also be a age component) or you agree on it. There are even words for both, tutoyer and vouvoyer. This is something most native French speakers would know, but is not necessarily what non-native would as Vous is also used for the plural you when you are speaking about a group.
//i\\
I have a true gift for being unintentionally rude in English. If I lived there I’d spend all my time in the doghouse with both feet in my mouth.
BTW is there an equivalent Japanese expression for “in the doghouse,” i.e. being out of favor because you are a stupid, clumsy, uncouth clod?
Full disclosure: I spent the first three years of my life in Japan (1948-51) when my father was stationed there. We had a Japanese maid/nanny (as all the American GIs did, even enlisted). My father told me that she and I were inseparable and Japanese was almost my first language.
If you grew up here (past the age of three), you would just learn to pay more attention.
There really isn’t a similar expression for “in the doghouse.”
It didn’t work in the USA.
That’s nice to hear. As you know, English has plenty of them.
Also, if you don’t look Japanese, you can make use of the “gaijin” card. That is, you can get away with saying/doing certain things because they just assume you don’t know any better, and then get praised when you actually do get it right.
//i\\
Or, when my boss overheard the word “gaijin” spoken by a person who assumed my boss didn’t know Japanese, told him, in perfect Japanese, “that’s gaikokujin to you.”
Gaijin = foreign person
Gaikokujin = foreign country person; this is considered the more polite of the two terms.
The difference is slight, but apparently quite loaded.
Man, I wish that I knew Japanese, and had an audience to speak it to. I use lots of malaprops in real life, and so any time I would have the opportunity to use “gaijin” I would malaprop it as “kaiju.”
Heh, sounds a bit like the difference between being called anglo and being called gringo.
The word for chairman is Kaichou (会長 literally organization top), so for an group I am member of I jokingly called the president Kaichou, and someone heard Kaiju, so now we call him that and joke that we shouldn’t make him angry lest he take out a city block. 
//i\\
Just a couple of days ago I was watching the French adaptation of Ghosts (with English subs) and someone was complaining that someone started out with using non-formal forms.
The terms “gringo” and “gaijin” are very equivalent.
Can “gaijin” be used in a non-derogatory manner? Because gringo can.
Also gringo has multiple meanings, it can mean “Foreigner from Europe or the US” or “native with Northern European features”
Sometimes it’s just considered casual rather than derogatory, depending on context.
That’s the key point. The real answer is that you address your niece in a way that you have both got used to and that feels right for you and for her, and it might be different from how you address your other niece. What we call our family members (honorifics and pronouns) doesn’t rigidly follow textbook rules. It’s a facet of our relationship with them. My wife’s aunt is oba-chan, not oba-san. My form of address for my wife’s dad was “wrong” (overly close or casual) by textbook standards.
We are taught that “-chan” is used for girls and very small boys. But an adult man can be affectionately “-chan” to his wife’s friend-group or aunt. We are taught that certain pronouns are used by males and others by females. But women can and do refer to themselves as “ore” or “boku” - they are masculine-flavoured pronouns but they absolutely are available for use by women. It’s all situational.
Conversely, using vous with someone with whom you had been on tu terms is an extremely powerful way to suddenly build a wall between you and them.
Paradoxically, it is pretty much an insult, and a sign that the relationship is highly unlikely to be salvaged. It’s basically saying that they’re a stranger to you again.
There’s no coming back from a switch back to vous.
For whatever it’s worth, during the few months I lived in Japan in the mid 1990s, I was taught that one is NEVER addressed without an honorific. EVER. Your BFF since you were in the crib will be addressed as Hiroshi-san, never ever just Hiroshi. Your dad is Otoosan (unless you want to be grounded) and my friend addressed her preschool son as Ryo-kun, never just Ryo. Is this a change that has taken place since then, or has it always been this way (and I was just taught wrong)?
Again, it depends. When I was first here in 1981, everyone said gaijin and only a few people used it derogatorily.
At some point, some foreigners pushed for gaikokujin and most Japanese obliged.
Unlike a lot of racial slurs in English, there isn’t a long history of gaijin being clearly used as a slur by a majority of people.
The most discrimination I’ve faced was when I was trying to rent an apartment back in the early 90s, and a lot of places refused to rent to foreigners. They politely said they wouldn’t rent to gaikokujjn, so it really isn’t a matter of words.
Exactly. Years ago, only girls would refer to themselves by their first name (example: まりも良いよ) and adult women, older boys and men would never. Now boys do as well.
My wife is Taiwanese, so people don’t automatically assume she’s not Japanese. Her pronunciation is much less accented than mine so it takes longer for people to figure out she’s not a native.
There is a lot of difference in how Japanese interact with us. It used to happen more in the past, and fortunately it’s getting less frequently now, but some Japanese think that the ability to say hello in Japanese is the most amazing feat they’ve ever seen. Because my wife has an Asian face, they assume it’s not a big deal that she’s completely fluent.
That’s completely wrong, and it’s always been the case that people have used a number of forms of address.
It would be really strange to address one’s BFF from the crib as Hiroshi-San. It doesn’t match. You can call someone you’ve know from the crib with san, but it shows that the relationship has always been strained and that you are emotionally strangers.
At my son’s sailing club, the two coaches were on the same college sailing team. They called each other by last name sans san. “Hayashi, what about this?” “Tanaka, can you do this?” They called each other omae, as well, of course. It would be weird if they felt the need to use san, as that shows a distance as well as respect. As a parent, and someone not as close to them, they used -san with me and I used it with them, because we didn’t go back 20 years.
As far as the mother calling the child with -kun, as I explained before, some families do that and some don’t.
I worked with a couple Japanese guys in the mid-90s who went by first name, and no san. Everyone just called them that.
The reason they lied to you is that you have to be able to read the situation accurately in order to know when you should drop the honorifics, and living in Japan for a couple of months isn’t going to give you the background necessary. It’s better to err on the polite side than being rude.
I have been told that I look like I am halfu (half-Japanese half-something else, in my case white). As a result sometimes people will talk to me in Japanese or in English depending on who I am next to. It was really funny on a flight to the US when I was sitting next to a friend who has blonde hair and blue eyes. I was sitting in the aisle seat, so the air flight attendant would first address me in Japanese, and then seeing who was sitting next to me would switch to English. This was not a case of wanting to ask my friend a question, it really was a mid-sentence switch.
//i\\
Today is a national holiday here and my son wanted to go practice soccer with his friends. We had to do the texting back and forth to try to arrange things.
Some parents call my son just his name, others use name+kun, some use kun with their own son, others don’t. My son is high school and the soccer players are middle school school and high school boys.
Yesterday I was talking to the father of my daughter’s classmate, who is also a teacher, and he used Name only for my daughter, but on a text message he used Name + San while the mother uses Name + Chan.
Forms of address are all over the place.