So... i been seeing a lot of cases in anime or real life japanese that pepole
use 「お兄さん」or 「お姉さん」(depending on gender) to ask something to someone that you
don't know. Is this direspectful or something? because i've never seeing it in
textbooks lmao.
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word-choice words word-usage formality daily-life
Calling someone お兄さん or お姉さん in the street; is it irrespectful?
It is used as 2nd person pronoun to (supposedly) sound friendlier than あなた or
君 (the former sounds rather formal while the latter would be rude).

Though how they are used is not the same, it may be similar to _man, guys_ in
English (I've never seen them mentioned in textbooks).

* * *

Two examples:

  * お兄さん、ちょっと寄っていきませんか
  * Hey, man, wouldn't you drop by at our place?

This is used by a person inviting you to a dubious bar on the street, say in
Kabukicho of Shinjuku, for example. As I said, using あなた or 君 would be
inappropriate here, too formal or too rude. On the other hand, maybe people in
50s wouldn't like to be called お兄さん because it sounds like being considered
too lightly. In this sense, it sounds disrespectful. Traditionally an
equivalent for older people was 社長(president), which I'm not sure is still
used (I guess not).

For another example, some sales person may use お兄さん to refer to you. This is
mainly in order to sound friendly. To some people, it sounds too friendly and
disrespectful as such.
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お兄さん/お姉さん is basically a fairly friendly second-person pronoun, so it's not
disrespectful by itself. In real life, you may hear this typically when
someone tries to get your interest and get you buy something.

However, it can be overly friendly (or even a bit scary) if used in
inappropriate situations. It would be safe in a popular tourist area or at a
festival, but I'll probably get defensive if a total stranger suddenly said
this to me in unsafe or quiet places. It may not be as informal as "(Yo) bro",
but you should not use お兄さん/お姉さん when you are politely asking for the way to a
station.

You cannot use お兄さん/お姉さん to a small child for obvious reasons, but it is not
uncommon to say it to a middle-aged or old person (as flattery).
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answer