Wishing I was a cool Japanese person.

So, I've been reading this manga series called W Juliet, (cover of first installment displayed here)

And I've been noticing a lot of suffixes that seem to be honorifics or something like that, so I took the liberty of Googling "Japanese Honorifics" and via Wikipedia, learned the meaning of four titles that had previously been mysteries to me.

San-Kind of like "Mr." "Miss" "Ms." etc. Pretty much everybody uses it for everybody else, both formally and informally. Some people even use it for their own spouses.

Chan- A diminutive suffix. Used for babies, children, mousy teenage girls, or basically anything someone thinks is cute. Like, Puppy-chan. No. Probably not. Anyone else play SSX Tricky back in the old Game Cube days? If so, I bet you remember Kaori. I would call her Kaori-chan.

Kun- (Never actually seen this one in my graphic novels (NERD ALERT) but I found it useful to know)This suffix is used by older people referring to younger people. Like something your friend's mom would call you.

Sempai- This one, although fun to say, has a pretty simple definition. Basically it is used to address a senior colleague. (Yeah, I had to look up how to spell colleague.)

Sensei-Literally means "Former-born". Used for authority figures like policemen, governors. Paris Hilton

So anyway. That has been my experience of the Japanese language. That's not true. I also learned that Nii-chan means big brother, and Nee-San means big sister. Maybe I should start saying them...