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They all seem to mean soldier. Could anyone help me?
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question
word-choice meaning
What is the difference between 兵隊、兵士 and 軍人
naruto gave a good answer which really should be sufficient, but in case
anyone finds this helpful, I am going to leave some information here.

* * *

The individual kanji interestingly mean the following:

> 兵 - soldier
>
> 隊 - company
>
> 士 - gentleman / samurai
>
> 軍 - military
>
> 人 - person

So it might seem like the natural conclusion to assume that "兵隊" is more
indicative of a group than the others. Nonetheless, Japanese is interesting
like that, and the word on its own doesn't give indication whether it is
singular or plural. Perhaps "兵隊" requires the existence of a group, e.g. it
implies that it isn't a lone mercenary, but actually part of a group.

"士" is commonly used in words to describe a specific profession, such as "運転士"
or "税理士", hence the technical ring to it.

"軍人" is synonymous to "兵士", except that it can also mean "military personnel",
e.g. anyone who works in, or for the military.
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answer
These words do not have strict definitions, but I think the primary difference
between 兵隊 and 兵士 is the level of formality.

**兵隊** is a relatively casual word for 'soldier'. For example, one can
friendly address a solider as 兵隊さん. Note that when this word is used on its
own, it rarely refers to a group of soldiers, despite its appearance. There
are some words which happen to contain 兵隊 and refer to a group of soldiers:
海兵隊 (Marine), 騎兵隊 (Cavalry), etc., but don't mix them up.

**兵士** sounds more formal and technical to me, and usually refers to lowest
ranked soldiers. (roughly corresponds to Private, and sometimes Sergeant, I
think) I feel people higher than commissioned officers are unlikely to be
called 兵士.

**軍人** refers to military personnel in general, and includes everyone in the
military hierarchy (General, Colonel, Lieutenant, ...).

Note that there's no official 軍人/兵隊/兵士 in modern Japan. So-called "Japanese
Army" is officially called 自衛隊 or Self Defense Force. The politically-correct
way to refer to them is 自衛隊員.
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2015-12-16T16:15:41.357
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answer