Quick Questions
Japanese for "student" [#911]
My flatmates learn go from me and I modestly give myself the title "sensei". I was calling them my little "insei" when I thought that was the right word, but I don't think it is. Is there a word that would be appropriate to address students?
-- Anonymous
Bob McGuigan: Gakusei refers to a student in a university or high school, seito refers to an elementary or middle school student. An apprentice to a master or someone taking lessons or training from someone is a deshi. Insei is used for people officially recognized by the professional go association as student professionals. Away from the Go world insei is sometimes used as an abbreviation of daigakuinsei which means graduate student.
Interesting; the korean equivalent of "insei" is 연구생 (yeongusaeng), which - if I'm not mistaken - literally translates to "research student". A school pupil would be a 학생 (haksaeng), a university student is 대학생 (daehaksaeng), 대 meaning "big" (I hope). The school is 학교 (hakkyo).
Anyway, what I meant to ask is - does "insei" also have the connotation of "research student"?
Bob: For me graduate student and research student are similar enough. Any graduate student working on a thesis or dissertation would also be a research student.
Sort of, from what (very) little I know. A university graduate student would be referred to as a "daigaku insei" whereas an undergraduate student would be referred to as simply "daigakusei".
Though, my knowledge of Japanese is extremely basic (I've taken two courses, so I probably know more than your average anime fan, but I'm not even at the level of an elementary school student in the language yet, in terms of writing, and my speech is far worse), so I couldn't give a more precise answer than that. Still, it seems to me that "insei" carries a connotation of being more than just your ordinary student in the field.
Sorry to necro this thread, but fwiw:
The cognate of 연구생 would be 研究生 (kenkyuusei), I believe, and is a separate term for research student at Japanese universities. "Kenkyuusei" and "daigakuinsei" have different connotations. Refer to the the Wikipedia articles for each?
Why is it korean?
"Modestly"? Sempai, only your students may accord that title to you, preferably students from classes long graduated ages ago.
watashi wa syoujyo desu. gakusei.
In Japanese culture you would never refer to yourself as "Sensei". "Sensei" is an honourific term used to address someone "worthy" of great respect. Practically speaking it's used to address teachers, doctors, legal professionals, and politicians.
You can refer to yourself using the humble term "kyoshi" which means a teacher. Your students, or "deshi" (I believe "deshi" translates as pupil) would then refer to you as sensei.
Interestingly enough, you can say "Watashiha kyoshi desu" meaning "I am a teacher", but you would never say "Watashiha XXX-kyoshi" when you introduce yourself, you would just say "watashi ha XXX desu" (where XXX refers to your name). If one of your students were to address you, they would address you as "sensei" or "XXX-sensei".
I hope my explanation isn't too confusing.
i'm from algeria and i respect the japanese culture . i would to talk with a students who could speak english please conect me on relinabes@hotmail.com
Can you help me to watch this video and teld me what it talks about?
![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAc22bsU6nM
![[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]](images/stone-hello.png "Sensei's Library")