いらっしゃる、お～になる and なさる

Grammar Points
#1

I keep mixing these up. :exploding_head:

いらっしゃる is supposed to be used for ‘to be’, ‘to come’ and ‘to go’, yet it’s used for ‘to do’ as well?
Example: 田中さん今本をよんでいらっしゃる。The hint even says [honorific・act of doing] and yet it wants me to use the grammar point for ‘to be’, ‘to come’ and ‘to go’?? Why?!

Then there is お～になる, which Bunpro clearly says it used for ‘to do (honorific)’ and yet いらっしゃる is often the correct answer.

Lastly there is なさる, which is supposedly the same as お～になる but is used for OTHER people.
What is that even supposed to mean? What other people? The example sentences don’t seem to support that notion, like these for example:

A: 今田中様がお召し上がりになっています。(お～になる)

B: 平野さんは明日の飲み会に出席なさいますか。(なさる)

How is B different from A? Why is 平野さん regarded as an “other” person and therefore I’d have to use なさる and 田中様 somehow isn’t and therefore I’d have to use お～になる?

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#2

いらっしゃる is supposed to be used for ‘to be’, ‘to come’ and ‘to go’, yet it’s used for ‘to do’ as well?
Example: 田中さん今本をよんでいらっしゃる。The hint even says [honorific・act of doing] and yet it wants me to use the grammar point for ‘to be’, ‘to come’ and ‘to go’?? Why?!

Then there is お～になる, which Bunpro clearly says it used for ‘to do (honorific)’ and yet いらっしゃる is often the correct answer.

Sorry, the nuance field might be misleading in this case.

It is more about its function as いる of ている construction the “-ing”. The progressive tense.

なさる is basically honorific of する, so it’s used in する verbs instead of する. So instead of 料理します（料理する）, we have 料理なさいます （料理なさる）。
Notice that 出席 is a する verb.

お。。。になる is used for verbs that are not する verbs and at the same time don’t have the honorific version. (there are some exception, 召し上がる is the honorific verb, but you can use it as お召し上がりになる, but this only applies to few verbs, usually it’s considered double Keigo and ungrammatical)

読む -> お読みになる

:warning: Used for OTHER people.

**the warning applies to all of keigo. You cannot speak about yourself in keigo. **
It is used to speak about actions of other people, who you want to exalt.

Sorry for the extreme inconvenience! :bowing_man::bowing_man::bowing_man:
I start adding explanations right now!

Edit:
Confusing phrasing has been removed :+1:

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#3

Thank you, that was really helpful! :slight_smile:

This seems to have cleared up my confusion, I’ll know for sure once I get to review the grammar points again.

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#4

Let us know if you do better on those grammar points! I’m struggling with them as well.

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#5

Right now I am acing them all, but they’re all ghost reviews so that doesn’t mean much yet. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#6

Keigo is a little bit of a nightmare. I don’t actually use Bunpro all that much at the moment because I’m in Japan at a university here, so I just kind of search out random stuff I need or want to remember and don’t go through much sequentially, and I forget how much of that stuff I added last semester, if any. But the one thing I’d caution to make the above explanation more complete is that this also applies to in-groups and out-groups. So you also would not to speak to someone in a group that is not yours (say someone in another company) about someone in your group (your family or company, etc.) using those forms. You would speak of both yourself and others part of your in-group using 謙譲語, even if those people are your superiors within your group. No idea if that distinction ever comes up in these sentences (probably not since it would likely need more context), but it’s worth noting.

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#7

I have another question concerning these grammar points, I don’t understand when I’m supposed to use the る form and when to use the ます form, there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for this and I keep getting my reviews wrong because of this.

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#8

BunPro is helping a lot with Keigo. I’ve read through N4 material over and over but I don’t live Japan so really there not good excuse to use it. However, the grammar SRS format and extended examples is really great and patterns become much more predictable. However it goes beyond grammar points so it’s always a challenge.

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#9

I’m struggling to understand what you meant by

お。。。になる is used for verbs that are not する verbs and at the same time don’t have the honorific version.

in this specific example. In fact this exact sentence was going to lead me to make a new topic when I saw this post so I’m glad it’s confusing for others.

For the example posted, I answered お読みになっています, understanding that お~になる is an honorific form of todo. This of course came up wrong, and instead the answer is 読んでいらっしゃる. I can understand WHY that is a valid answer, but I don’t know how I can tell from the hint text why I should be using いらっしゃる instead of お～になっています. Why is my answer not a valid answer?

I appreciate any help, especially considering this thread hasn’t had any activity in close to a year.

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#10

Hey :smiley:

By that, I meant that usually it is not used with nouns of Chinese origin that take する like 心配, which are used with なさる instead. (though there are times, you can hear/see them with なる like in ご卒業になる, etc) By the honorific version, I meant words like いらっしゃる, which is the honorific version of いく・くる・いる. You should use the former instead of later with お + ◯ + になる like おいきになる.

It is a valid answer and should be accepted! (and is from now on, since I’ve added it + some hints)

お読みになっています
読んでいらっしゃいます
読んでおられます
are all valid and accepted

I hope it helps!
Cheers!

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#11

@mdaguillo
Forgot to call you :bowing_man:

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#12

Thank you so much for your explanation! That definitely cleared up my confusion.

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#13

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@mrnoone I just wanted to test to see if the other valid answers work and it doesn’t seem to have updated yet. Do you know how long it takes to incorporate the other valid answers? In the mean time I’ll keep answering the original answer.

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#15

@mdaguillo
It should be working now!
I made typos when I updated the sentence!

Thank you for the feedback and sorry for the inconvenience! :bowing_man:

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