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Help with naming

BillMad

後輩
4 Aug 2015
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Hello I'm not sure this belongs here but here goes..
I'm trying to contact someone (Japanese) via e-mail and I have contacted others and have not got any reasonable responses, which I believe is because of me irregularly naming them (after some googling I found out that adding -san after the family name shows respect) but now I'm kinda in a dilemma because I cant recognize which one of their names is the family name (embarrassing I know)

their names are usually listed in this format [ FIRST second ]
for eg. INOUE Sarakaki
which one is the family name and which one is the forename and what is the best way to address them especially if you dont know them?
 
Inoue is a common family name.
If you don't know which one is which, put -san on the whole construction, i.e. Inoue Sarakaki-san
 
When you see one name in all capitals that is usually the family name.

Are you doing this in English?
 
Either no responses or getting a template rejection reply.
I'm not sure I'd classify those as unreasonable responses. Quite frankly, I think it's entirely reasonable to ignore unsolicited requests from people, though a bit more civil to send a rejection letter. This ignores the strong possibility that a certain percentage of these professors likely have limited English proficiency. If some random student sent me a request in Swahili I'd likely ignore it as well. Japanese I'd try to suss it out, but I doubt I'd spend the time to try to write a personal reply in Japanese. I just don't have the proficiency to discuss academics and I certainly wouldn't have the time to mentor a student with whom I don't share a common fluent language.

I've always written back personally in response to requests of various sorts in English, probably because I'm a soft touch, but I certainly wouldn't fault another for having a different policy.

Why don't you post a sample email you've sent and people can tell you if your use of honorifics, or lack thereof, would have likely had any impact.
 
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