@TypicalGatsby Nice find! While お〜なさる carries nearly an identical meaning to お〜になる, it is considered quite archaic and old-fashioned, mainly being found in literary work up to the end of the Edo period. That being said, I have added お〜なさる variations to answers that throw hints/warnings rather than marking you incorrectly. Cheers!
歯医者がお見えになるのは3時です。
[The answer is a set phrase meaning “to arrive.”]
Should I have known that 見える means “to arrive” before this came up?
@CrisH There is a note under the example sentence on the main grammar point page that reads: “お見えになる is a set phrase meaning ‘to arrive.’” Cheers!
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Hi! I am a little confused about one of the examples for this grammar point:
" 今いま田中たなか様さまが おめしあがりになっています"
I thought that 召し上がる was already humble and so in this example the correct answer would just be 召し上がります. However, the answer wanted has both the honorific お and wants you to add になる to the end. I thought this construction was only for verbs that don’t have a humble form?
Thanks for any help!
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This grammar point just doesn’t make sense to me at all.
こちらの商品を 求もとめになった お客様
why can’t we use なりました？
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It’s because ～ます/～ました finishes a sentence, so this being in the middle of a sentence, the plain form should be used here, and if it is a polite sentence, then you just need to stick です on the end.
EDIT: There are of course instances whereby you can use ます in the middle of a sentence, but it can never be followed by a noun, as in this sentence.
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ウェブサイトでご注文になれば、明日のおとどけになります 。[届とどける]
I’ve seen this の used in other places where I would expect a different particle, is there a particular reason why の is used instead of something like 明日に?
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@en_velours
Hey and welcome on the community forums 
It is like this because お届け in this context is a noun. To modify (describe) noun with another noun we need の. になる in this case simply mean “to become”.
So
明日 + の + お届け + なる
tomorrow | of | delivery | will become -putting all of that together→ It will be delivered tomorrow
By the way, if you want to use 明日に then you can say something like this.
ウェブサイトでご注文になれば、明日にお届けします。
(We will humbly deliver it tomorrow)
Actually I have to apologize, because the example wasn’t really a case of honorific language, it was more like humble language. I have replaced the sentence with actual honorific one.
I hope it helps,
Cheers! 
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I had a feeling it was something like that, thanks for clarifying the usage!
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In the notes for おいでになる時間じかんをお伝つたえください。it mentions that お見えになる can also be used in place of くる, but this answer isn’t accepted (not even a shake with hint to use something else). Is that a bug or can お見えになる really not be used here? If so it should be removed from the notes as that is confusing.
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@tomwamt
Hey and welcome on the community forums 
お見えになる時間をお伝えください。is a natural sentence like the note says. I just (unfortunately) made a typo in the database, that is why the answer wasn’t accepted.
It should be working now. 
Thank you for the feedback and sorry for the inconvenience,
Cheers!
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I was also wondering this. Especially since the following is also listed as an alternative answer:
田中様がお召し上がりになっていらっしゃいます。
So that’s a special keigo vocab, plus お〜になる, plus 〜ていらっしゃいます.
Wouldn’t 召し上がっています already be sufficiently honorific?
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Yes! Remember that the key to Keigo is that the more distance, the more respectful/honorific/humble you’re being. I go into a bit more detail over at this post.
Your answer, while not grammatically wrong, in context its super weird to go all the way with Keigo like that just to use the 普通形 of いらっしゃる at the end. Not wrong, but ambiguous.
(Laughs in Keigo) There’s no such thing as too honorific if the situation demands it.
Take a look at this example:
「食べている」の敬語表現は、下記の順で敬意の度合いが高くなります。
・「食べている」
・「食べています」（「います」は「いる」の丁寧語）
・「召し上がっています」（「召し上がって」は「食べて」の尊敬語）
・「召し上がっていらっしゃる」（「いらっしゃる」は「いる」の尊敬語）
・「召し上がっていらっしゃいます」（「います」は「る」の丁寧語）
Like always, it’s dependent on the context, but being so formal its ungrammatical isn’t a thing. Keigo on!
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Just for the sake of how ridiculous Keigo can get:
https://townwork.net/magazine/knowhow/manners/baito_manners/13309/
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Man, keigo is a ridiculous rabbit hole!
I found this article that mentions combining お〜になる with 召し上がる and apparently it’s an acceptable use, even though it does look like 二重敬語.
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Don’t sweat it! Remember that if its taking twice the syllables to say the same thing, it’s probably keigo. 
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This grammar point is driving me nuts. Up until now I’ve broadly associated plain form with casual and -ます form with polite, and here comes おーになる to destroy that simple connection.
Can anyone explain historically how Japanese ended up with an honorific form that looks and acts like a casual form we’re told not to use in polite conversation?
Historically or linguistically rather than grammatically, which I understand thanks to an answer up thread - the trick I think is to stop thinking of “short form” as “casual form”.
It boggles the mind that one ought to be polite with strangers but that polite form is optional in honorific speech.
You’re mixing up two different concepts.
- です・ます expresses politeness vs. the person we’re speaking with, regardless of the content of the conversation.
- おーになる expresses respect vs. the person we’re talking about and who’s doing an action.
These can be the same person, but they don’t have to be the same person.
| "Miku read a manga" | polite vs. listener | respectful vs. Miku |
|---|---|---|
| ミクさんは漫画を読んだ | no | no |
| ミクさんは漫画を読みました | yes | no |
| ミクさんは漫画をお読みになった | no | yes |
| ミクさんは漫画をお読みになりました | yes | yes |
Additionally, polite forms generally only appear at the end of a sentence. Respectful (and humble) forms can appear anywhere someone does something, including the middle of a sentence three layers of relative clauses down. For example, we can talk about the manga that Miku read as ミクさんがお読みになった漫画 anywhere in the sentence and still show respect to Miku.
As for the history, I don’t know the details of how and when all the respectful forms emerged. But even though in this case, these two forms do something different, there absolutely are other cases where multiple forms that accomplish the same thing exist too. I don’t think that’s particularly strange though, since most languages sometimes have more than one way to say the same thing.
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