I know that WaniKani vocab is not the greatest, but especially the military ranks are really bad without the necessary context.
More concretely: 少尉 中尉 大尉 are ranks from the Japanese Imperial Army that ceased to exist in 1946. Nobody uses them without a historical context and if you are a military person and you want to address your Japanese counterpart with these ranks, he might be seriously offended.
The real ranks are 少佐 中佐 大佐 and you actually learn them some levels earlier. Now, it is not bad just to learn the kanji and the vocab, but the descriptions and examples should clearly state the differences in this case.
I think the former three are for 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant and Captain.
And the latter three are for Major, Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel.
So they do not mean the same thing.
The Wikipedia page for the official ranks in the JSDF lists the same two base
kanji 佐 and 尉 but not with the 小, 中, 大 but with numbers 1 to 3 and also include the
kanji for ground, sea and air respectively. But maybe that is just the official name
and the other name might be used less formally?
I think you are right and they are not used for the JSDF.
But if the ones with 小, 中, 大 and 尉 are not used anymore then why would the higher ranks
with 小, 中, 大 and 佐 still be used today? They look the same on the Wikipedia page.
I get the impression that they are that, but they are not only that. For example the Japanese Wikipedia article on ranks in the US military uses 少尉 中尉 大尉 as its translations/descriptions for the US O-1, O-2 and O-3 ranks. And the the 大尉 article has a photo captioned as showing an American アメリカ海兵隊大尉 and a Japanese 陸上自衛隊一等陸尉. So it looks to me like if you’re specifically talking to or about an officer in a particular military organisation you want to find out what their actual title is and avoid accidental round trip translations to and from another language.
As it happens, the SF book the Advanced Book Club is currently reading has as its protagonist クラヴィス・シェパード who is a 大尉 in a near future US military.
Listen, I don’t wanna be all “you made a typo therefore your whole point is nullified”, but… as others have pointed out, these are different ranks. Your research is suspect.
That’s if they want to be specific that they’re a member of the army, navy or air force. If you click the link for 2佐 on the Japanese version of the page, for example, what it actually links you to is 中佐. That said, Wikipedia article titles can give you an idea of what modern usage is, but it doesn’t really tell you what’s actually in use.
Fullmental Alchemist has main characters in all three of the 佐, 尉 and 将 tiers, so if you want to read it in Japanese or watch the anime without subtitles…
No, you are right. I made a mistake with the 佐 + 尉. I was probably still under the influence of WaniKani that mentioned the 少尉 as just a “second lieutenant” rank. The issue is that the Jieitai doesn’t use the 少, 中, 大 prefixes anymore. These are just old imperial ranks. So why not make us learn 3等陸尉 or 准陸尉 if you just want to hammer the 尉 usage home.
Jietai military tradition is not rooted in the Imperial Army as such, which is why they changed ranks and rank symbols. Please take note that the 軍 is completely gone and now they split into the services 陸, 海 and 空.
Why do you think they are just old imperial ranks? I found examples of them being used as the translation for other countries’ current military rank names too.
I am primarily complaining about the lack of context. We have already established, that the examples are not coherent. If it was the case, that some ranks are just used for foreign forces and have also been used for the Imperial Army, then I would like to know that. I learn Japanese to be able to talk to Japanese people. My background is military, which is why I would certainly like to be able to talk to Jietai personnel. In fact I know quite a few, but we have been talking in English and my native tongue by now. I will ask them the next chance I get, but I would prefer if WaniKani just provided context to what it teaches me.
I’m not sure it’s really practical to load down the average user with that amount of granular detail – the examples are there to reinforce kanji, not to make you an expert in the topics mentioned. If you need detailed specifics about military ranks, there are probably better resources to reinforce that knowledge.
