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The Japanese expression of 'sensei' shares the same characters as the Chinese word 先生, pronounced xiānshēng in Standard Chinese. Xiansheng was a courtesy title for a man of respected stature. Middle Chinese pronunciation of this term may have been * senʃaŋ or * sienʃaŋ. [6]
Chinese people often address professionals in formal situations by their occupational titles. These titles can either follow the surname (or full name) of the person in reference, or it can stand alone either as a form of address or if the person being referred to is unambiguous without the added surname.
Shifu is a Chinese cultural term. Although its pronunciation always sounds the same, there are two ways of writing it using Chinese characters, and they bear two different meanings. The first variation, Shīfù 師傅 ('Expert Instructor'), is used as an honorific, which is applied to various professionals in everyday life.
Korean, Vietnamese, some Chinese dialects and minority languages (such as Zhuang and Yao) that use Chinese characters also have similar pronunciation methods for Chinese characters. In Korea, kun'yomi is called "interpretation reading" (釋讀). These phenomena also appear in Mandarin and English, such as "i.e." is read as "that is".
In China, letters of the English alphabet are pronounced somewhat differently because they have been adapted to the phonetics (i.e. the syllable structure) of the Chinese language. The knowledge of this spelling may be useful when spelling Western names, especially over the phone, as one may not be understood if the letters are pronounced as ...
The traditional Chinese martial arts school, or kwoon (館, guǎn) is an extended family headed by the Shifu. The Shifu's teacher is the "師公 honorable master" or Shigong . Similarly the Shifu's wife is the Shimu "teacher mother" and the grandmaster's wife is known as: 師姥 shi lao; or 師婆 shi po.
Many non-native Chinese speakers have difficulties mastering the tones of each character, but correct tonal pronunciation is essential for intelligibility because of the vast number of words in the language that only differ by tone (i.e. are minimal pairs with respect to tone). Statistically, tones are as important as vowels in Standard Chinese.
Chinese honorifics (Chinese: 敬語; pinyin: Jìngyǔ) and honorific language are words, word constructs, and expressions in the Chinese language that convey self-deprecation, social respect, politeness, or deference. [1] Once ubiquitously employed in ancient China, a large percent has fallen out of use in the contemporary Chinese lexicon.