So... i been seeing a lot of cases in anime or real life japanese that pepole use 「お兄さん」or 「お姉さん」(depending on gender) to ask something to someone that you don't know. Is this direspectful or something? because i've never seeing it in textbooks lmao.
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Thanks for your answers！ – ティアゴ Jan 10 '23 at 16:14
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お兄さん/お姉さん is basically a fairly friendly second-person pronoun, so it's not disrespectful by itself. In real life, you may hear this typically when someone tries to get your interest and get you buy something.
However, it can be overly friendly (or even a bit scary) if used in inappropriate situations. It would be safe in a popular tourist area or at a festival, but I'll probably get defensive if a total stranger suddenly said this to me in unsafe or quiet places. It may not be as informal as "(Yo) bro", but you should not use お兄さん/お姉さん when you are politely asking for the way to a station.
You cannot use お兄さん/お姉さん to a small child for obvious reasons, but it is not uncommon to say it to a middle-aged or old person (as flattery).
naruto
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It's probably not quite as informal as "bro", but it's also not as safe to use as "sir" or "miss/ma'am". Somewhere in between I guess, but slightly closer to the latter set, I feel. – Leebo Dec 21 '22 at 02:18
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@Leebo Edited. I personally don't to want to be addressed as お兄さん in Shibuya at night, but it's fine when I'm at Asakusa during the day :) – naruto Dec 21 '22 at 04:33
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It is used as 2nd person pronoun to (supposedly) sound friendlier than あなた or 君 (the former sounds rather formal while the latter would be rude).
Though how they are used is not the same, it may be similar to man, guys in English (I've never seen them mentioned in textbooks).
Two examples:
- お兄さん、ちょっと寄っていきませんか
- Hey, man, wouldn't you drop by at our place?
This is used by a person inviting you to a dubious bar on the street, say in Kabukicho of Shinjuku, for example. As I said, using あなた or 君 would be inappropriate here, too formal or too rude. On the other hand, maybe people in 50s wouldn't like to be called お兄さん because it sounds like being considered too lightly. In this sense, it sounds disrespectful. Traditionally an equivalent for older people was 社長(president), which I'm not sure is still used (I guess not).
For another example, some sales person may use お兄さん to refer to you. This is mainly in order to sound friendly. To some people, it sounds too friendly and disrespectful as such.
sundowner
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