Talk:Senpai and kōhai

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Concerns

Some concerns:

In an early paragraph, the text appears that in Eastern society the relationship is similar to that of tutor/student. But the article referenced, and I believe the intention of the text, is to reference Western society, not Eastern society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:F2C0:EEE2:AC0:6227:DD98:573:9FF7 (talk) 20:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• Is this really widely used by otakus? Any reference?
• Is this worth keeping in Wikipedia? Shouldn't this be a wiktionary article?

It's certainly in my experience a term near-universally understood by otaku, if not used especially frequently (however, otaku culture in the UK may differ from the US, Australia, etc). Nevertheless, I think there's plenty that could be said and of interest to English speakers on the sempai-kohai relationship, in schools and workplaces (and other settings like sports clubs). I'm really busy at the moment, but I'll try to come back in a week or two to write something about it. --AlexChurchill 01:15, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Macrons

I removed the macrons because it's unnecessary to use them in all occurances. They tend to render somewhat funky in a lot of browsers and people who know what they are don't need constant reminders just to read an article about them. It's enough to establish length in the first use of the word. And please take more care when re-adding them. The revert was with tildes (as in "ñ") rather than macrons. This also had nothing to do with stress, which was a commen to the changing of "SEM-pai" to just "sempai" in the lead.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I can agree with some of this. The browsers on my TV set and my mobile phone don't show the macroned vowels at all. However, I think it's better to be consistent in using the macrons throughout an article. If you want to discuss this kind of thing, the place to do it is on the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). We should have a clear, consistent policy on what to do, which everyone cooperates with. --DannyWilde 03:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

That's not how it works, Danny. Manuals of style are recommendations, not rules, and you shouldn't refer to it as either absolute or final. Demanding consensus decisions at the top level for a matter than is not even proscribed just encourages conservatism, instruction creep and rules lawyering. The solution is obviously to start fixing the Japanese, not the MoS.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

On Usenet, we call people like you trolls. --DannyWilde 01:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Senpai and sempai

Regardless of any romanization, the word "senpai" has to be pronounced "sempai". This is because the mouth has to close to make the "p" sound. Thus, there is not really any point in saying "this is pronounced sempai" etc. Also, if we are to add that information here, then logically it should be added to any article, such as "Asahi Shinbun" etc. where the same thing happens. Thus, I suggest not including it here. One thing that surprises me is the way people keep adding "mini Japanese lessons" to Wikipedia like this. On the page pocky, people keep adding information to the page about how to pronounce the word, much of it quite incorrect. I tried just removing it, but it was added back so many times that eventually it had a subsection on the pronunciation. Even after this subsection was added, another editor added some more incorrect information about pronunciation at the top of the article. --DannyWilde 02:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't underestimate the power that orthography has on people's minds. People will strain to produce that [n], which is by no means physically impossible, and I've heard people do it in my Japanese classes. Also, there are languages (like Russian where nasals arent' affected by the following consonant. Hence, [bank], not [baŋk]. I totally agree about Pocky, though, and I removed that silly pronunciation section. I encourage you to keep removing additions of this kind wherever you find them. If anyone protests, just point out that it's about as relevant as describing the pronunciation of Almond Joy in detail.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

So, on this page you are for adding pronunciation information, and on that page you are against adding it. That makes no sense. My feeling, as I stated above, is that your underlying goal is to draw people into arguments. --DannyWilde 15:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

So what is the final consensus? It's spelled "senpai" but pronounced "sempai"? --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 20:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning that it's usually spelled "sempai" in subtitles, or will that be obvious to people who got redirected here from "sempai" anyway? After all, anyone who watches anime in the original Japanese with subtitles must have a certain degree of intelligence ^_^ Dave-ros 11:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

To remove all ambiguity, I added an IPA transcription of the pronunciation. (By the way, I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by all the misinformation people put in the Pocky article. Check out the current version for an audio file of the pronunciation, an IPA transcription, and an all-new pronunciation paragraph which puts the pronunciation in context by comparing it with the Japanese transcriptions of English words, all of which I added) Spacecat2 05:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Leaving aside the question of whether pronunciation help should be given, I've added back a mention of "sempai" as an alternative romanisation since it is widely used and is accepted by IMEs etc. as valid romaji. Incidentally most of the existing refs seem inappropriate, I could only match up one of them with anything in the article, the other two are essentially computing articles more than anything. Samatarou (talk) 13:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation

I'm going to delete the IPA pronunciation for now, which is currently: [sempai]. I don't know enough about IPA transcription to know what it should be, but I know enough to know that's not correct. Either of the following might be correct:

• ˈsɛm.paɪ
• ˈseɪm.paɪ

...or something else entirely. Either way, a pronunciation lesson is not at all necessary. It should be more than sufficient to give the wikipedia-preferred Revised Hepburn romanization of "senpai" (see WP:MOS-JP), and note that the word is also frequently transliterated as "sempai". Please discuss if you object. Bradford44 02:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with [sempai] as a loose phonetic transcription. ˈseɪm.paɪ is almost certainly not correct, unless you're telling people how to pronounce the word with an American accent. There's no good reason to quibble between ˈsɛm.paɪ and ˈsem.pai: vowel symbols are all relative anyway, so at looser levels of transcription, you generally go for the more cardinal vowel ([e], in this case). Besides, Japanese phonology lists the vowel as [e], not [ɛ]. Likewise for [ai] vs. [aI]. I'm no expert on Japanese phonology, though, so perhaps someone more enlightened on both sides could help us out? Masily box 02:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Senpai and kōhai

Senpai and kōhai are inter dependable, so what about naming the article accordingly?, i. e., "Senpai and kōhai". —Leo Laursen ( T | C ) 15:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Senpai and kōhai are generally *not* interchangeable in a great many clubs. Senpai often denotes a black belt who is not the sensei, while kōhai refers to coloured belts (kyu level). I would recommend referencing the Shotokan article in particular. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.218.214 (talk) 03:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure what "interdependable" means but I don't think it means "interchangeable". 91.105.10.214 (talk) 01:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Kōhai

Kōhai translates as devastation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rishal21 (talk • contribs) 08:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

You are simultaneously correct and completely mistaken. Recall the fact that the Japanese language is rife with homophones, words that are pronounced identically. This is precisely why kanji is used in written communication, in order to minimize misinterpretation. The Kōhai you are referring to is 荒廃, and this does indeed translate to devastation. However, the Kōhai in this article is 後輩, which is roughly "lesser comrade". Xparasite9 (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

merge to seniority

This is not that different from the general concept of seniority, and most of the description about how special it is in Japanese culture actually applies to all of the East Asian culture. It's also called 先進, 學長, 師兄, etc. Yel D'ohan (talk) 06:59, 28 July 2015 (UTC)