I was raised to address strangers and those I wish to show social deference to as “Sir” or “Ma’am”. It’s a difficult habit to break, as it is deeply engrained.
What is an equivalent gender neutral honorific that is relatively common in English? If I can’t break the habit I’d rather have a substitute word to use instead of an awkward pause in the middle of addressing someone
I’d just use Google to ask but I’d rather ask the people directly rather than an AI generated answer based off of Reddit threads
honestly i’m not sure lol
you’re right but that’s mostly in the context of students referring to their teachers, i had the impression it’s quite different from the way it gets used as a second person pronoun or as a way of showing respect to someone.
선생님 is the primary way of refering to teachers, but if one’s being rude they might as well say “선생” (without the “님”) or their name, nickname, etc…
english isn’t my primary language so i’m not sure if my comment makes sense lol
Oh yeah, dropping the 님 makes total sense, I just didn’t know if there was another word used besides “선생” for teacher in a general sense.
Don’t worry about your English, it’s better than mine and I’m a native speaker and occasional pedant. Your comment absolutely makes sense.