The Japanese language makes use of honorific suffixes and prefixes when referring to others in a conversation. Suffixes are attached to the end of names and are often gender-specific, while prefixes are attached to the beginning of many nouns.

'Chan' expresses that the speaker finds a person endearing. In general, -chan is used for young children, close friends, babies, grandparents and sometimes female adolescents. It may also be used towards cute animals, lovers, or a youthful woman. Chan is not usually used for strangers or people one has just met.

Although traditionally, honorifics are not applied to oneself, some people adopt the childlike affectation of referring to themselves in the third person using -chan (childlike because it suggests that one has not learned to distinguish between names used for oneself and names used by others). For example, a young girl named Kanako might call herself Kanako-chan rather than using the first-person pronoun.

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