In Japanese, “san” is an honorific word that you can use after people’s last or first name to show your respect for that person. If you are referring to someone whose name is Mika Sato, you can call them by “Sato-san” or “Mika-san”. If you are not really close to the person or if you don’t call them by a nickname, san can be used for anyone regardless gender or age.
Did you know that san can also be used for shops?
Here are some examples: pan-ya-san (bakery), hon-ya-san (book store), obento-ya-san (lunch box shop), kuriiningu-ya-san (dry cleaning service), osushi-ya-san (sushi shop), osoba-ya-san (soba noodle shop), ohana-ya-san (flower shop), bunbogu-ya-san (office supply store)
Using “-ya” in this context means shop or store. You can add “ya-san” after the thing [noun] that is sold at the store to refer to that place*.
*We don’t use “…ya-san” for grocery stores or convenience stores, we just call them “suu-paa (pronounced just like ‘super’)” and “konbini” respectively.
Conversation between two stay-at-home moms
Yamamoto-san : Watanabe-san ! It looks like Sato-san opened a bakery last week!
Watanabe-san : Nice! I want to go. Where is it located?
Yamamoto-san : There is a flower shop in front of the station, right? The bakery is next to it.
Watanabe-san : That’s close to here. I will stop by the bakery after I go to the dry cleaning store today.
Yamamoto-san : I heard it’s pretty good and it’s getting popular. I’m also planning to go there today.
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