View Single Post
Old 12-09-2011, 12:56 AM   #84
kewms
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,318
Offline
Re: The Founder's Teaching Ability

Quote:
Kristoffer Sandven wrote: View Post
As Chris implies, we Westeners often have a need to formalize these things. Titles like this are used in context and will change depending on who you are talking to and about.
Indeed. Hierarchy and in-group/out-group relationships are a fundamental part of the Japanese language. They are not a fundamental part of the English language, and so we non-Japanese-fluent English speakers can confuse ourselves and others if we just translate the words without understanding the relationships.

Katherine
  Reply With Quote