先生

Usage

先生 (せんせい) is both a noun (teacher) and a title. As a title it attaches straight to the surname and replaces さん: 山田先生. It is also used alone as a form of address: 先生、質問があります. Frames: 先生に聞く (ask), 先生に習う (learn from), 日本語の先生 (a teacher of Japanese).

The people who are called 先生 go far beyond schools: doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, authors, manga artists and martial-arts instructors. It is a term of respect given by others; the neutral job name for a school teacher is 教師 (きょうし), and a university professor is 教授 (きょうじゅ).

Examples

• 山田先生は日本語の先生です。 やまだせんせい は にほんご の せんせい です。 Ms. Yamada is a Japanese teacher.
• 分からないときは先生に聞いてください。 わからない とき は せんせい に きいて ください。 When you don't understand, ask the teacher.
• 先生、質問があります。 せんせい、 しつもん が あります。 Teacher, I have a question.
• 先生に手紙を書きました。 せんせい に てがみ を かきました。 I wrote a letter to my teacher.

Traps for Spanish, English and French speakers

• 先生 is not only a teacher. Your doctor is 先生 to their face (お医者さん is only for talking about doctors, never to them), your lawyer is 先生, and a novelist is 先生. Think of it as ‘maître’ in French for lawyers, extended to every profession that teaches or heals.
• Title replaces さん. 田中先生, never 田中先生さん and never 先生の田中さん. Likewise you do not say 先生さん. Compare Spanish ‘el profesor Tanaka’, where the title goes in front; in Japanese it goes after.
• Do not call yourself 先生. On a form or in a self-introduction to strangers, a teacher writes 教師 (きょうし) or says 学校で教えています. 私は先生です sounds self-important; adults reserve 先生 for others, the way you would not introduce yourself as ‘el maestro’.
• profesor / professeur ≠ 教授. Spanish and French use profesor for any secondary or university teacher; Japanese 教授 (きょうじゅ) is strictly a university professor. Your high-school teacher is 先生 / 教師, never 教授.
• Long vowels count. せんせい ends in a long vowel (せい, two morae); clipped せんせ is childish or joking. And 先 alone is さき (ahead, earlier): 先生 literally means ‘one born earlier’.