When should you use san, sama, kun, and chan in Japanese in 2026?

-San is the everyday respectful title after a family name: Tanaka-san, Suzuki-san. Use it with shop staff, ward-office counters, neighbours you do not know well, and workplace colleagues until the relationship clearly loosens: Japanese for work. Calling someone only by a given name without a title is intimate in Japanese, not a casual Western default.

-Sama elevates the addressee further. You hear it in customer-service scripts, hotel and restaurant talk, and formal letters. Using -sama with every classmate can sound oddly stiff; using bare names with customers can sound rude.

-Kun often appears toward boys or junior male colleagues in schools and some offices; -chan softens names for children, close friends, or cute nicknames. Do not apply them to strangers, seniors, or clients after an anime binge. Job titles such as sensei, kacho, or shacho can replace or sit beside names in workplaces and clinics: Japanese at the clinic.

Friendship and dating still wait for an explicit invitation to drop titles: Making friends and Dating in Japan. Practise patterns in class rather than inventing nicknames: Learn Japanese. Regional listening is a separate ear skill: Japanese accents.