Re: USA Today: Columbia disaster stranded three men in space with 'no return ticket'

OM wrote:

...Hurm. This goes against what I was told about 20 years ago with
regards to that suffix. The guy from Japan - a native speaker - was
fairly emphatic that you never used -san with a woman, and that -chan
was the correct suffix to use. Nor did you *EVER* use -chan with a
male because it denoted a homosexual reference. Local cultural
differences affecting the linguistics and the translations, I suppose.

Today's Japanese seem not to know this.
The mails of our counterparts always start with
"Dear Smith-san", whether it is Mr. Smith or Ms. Smith.

No native speaker here?
.

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