sensei

The term "先生", read sensei in Japanese, xiansheng in Chinese, seonsaeng in Korean, and tiên sinh in Vietnamese, is an honorific used in the Sinosphere. In Japanese, the term literally means "person born before another" or "one who comes before". It is generally used after a person's name and means "teacher". The word is also used as a title to refer to or address other professionals or people of authority, such as clergy, accountants, lawyers, physicians and politicians, or to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill, e.g., accomplished novelists, musicians, artists and martial artists.