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Examples
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He returned to teach in Soas where one of his students, John Gittings, for many years the Guardian's China specialist, remembers his infectious laugh and that he was nicknamed "chabuduo xiansheng", Mr Not Quite, or Mr Almost, because he liked to avoid criticising his students directly.
John Chinnery obituary Frances Wood 2010
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Maybe you should encourage your students to come up with a new and creative title for you, like “maestro” or “xiansheng” or “de meester”.
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The preoccupation of Chinese with eldest-borns is obvious even in the language: The honorific we translate from Chinese as equivalent to the English "Mr.," xiansheng, actually has the literal meaning of "firstborn."
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Thus the word for teacher, or a title of respect, 先生, is pronounced xiansheng in Chinese, sensei in Japanese, and seonseng in Korean.
AMPONTAN 2009
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