いらっしゃる - Grammar Discussion

to be (honorific)
to come (honorific)
to go (honorific)

Structure

  • いる・くる ・いく→ いらっしゃる
  • ている → て いらっしゃる

:warning: Remember not to use honorific language when speaking about yourself and your actions!

[いらっしゃる can be combined with で to indicate a state of being (元気でいらっしゃる)]

[おいでになる is another word used to express いく・くる・いる in honorific speech and is synonymous with いらっしゃる]
[お見えになる can be also used in this case, but only meansくる]

View on Bunpro

For 田中さんは今本を よんでいらっしゃる 。[読よむ]
Why is よんでいらっしゃいます not a good answer also? Isn’t it more honorific?

Hey! Are you sure that you typed your answer correctly? Both よんでいらっしゃる and よんでいらっしゃいます are acceptable answers for this review question. Cheers!

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For [ 鈴様はもういらっしゃらないですか] I can’t use [いらっしゃいません], it only accepts the short form [いらっしゃらない], why?

3 Likes

Hey :slight_smile:
Similar to になる case, you only have to express politeness at the end of the sentence, since です is already there (and です expresses politeness) then you just should use いらっしゃらない form since いらっしゃいません is polite and you would use two polite forms one after another.

If there wasn’t です there you could use いらっしゃいません。

So acceptable phrases:

鈴木様はもういらっしゃらないですか。

鈴木様はもういらっしゃいませんか。

I have bolded the parts responsible for politeness :slight_smile:

I hope it helps,
Cheers!

7 Likes

Thanks for the reply (and another one in another thread). This really cleared up some confusion for me, somehow it never occured to me that I should only mark politeness at the end and I was always trying to match the conjugations with the rest of the sentence. Thank you again!

1 Like

I don’ quite understand why I cannot say:
田中さんは今本をお読みになっています

They are supposed to be both honorific way of describing a continuous action, so what’s the difference?

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@Rafal
Hey and welcome on the community forums :partying_face: and sorry for the slow answer :bowing_man:

Yes, you are right, it is 100% correct!

As a matter of fact, it was on the list of the correct answers, but by mistake, I have added “。” to it so you had to write " お読みになっています。" instead of simply “お読みになっています”.

Thanks to you we were able to fix the bug! Thank you!
Sorry for the inconvenience!

2 Likes

Why is this right

先(さき)に いらっしゃった んですが。

but this wrong with the polite past tense version of the same thing?

先(さき)に いらっしゃいました んですが。

Is it because of the んですが?

2 Likes

@flowsnake
You are right!

It is because the politeness is usually marked only at the end of the sentence (with some exceptions like before が (but/and), けれども(but), and in some cases から、ので, trying to please senpai, client by putting politeness anywhere you can despite the grammar, etc).

So if んですが is already at the end of the sentence, then you don’t have to make いらっしゃる polite.
We have put a sentence like this on purpose, to show that honorific verbs themselves do not have to be necessarily used in polite form.

I hope it helps,
Cheers

3 Likes

Many questions regarding this point, すみません、よろしく御願いします。

  1. Why らっしゃいます and not いらっしゃいます? Is this like the speaking contraction: ている→てる? In this case, should なさっていらしゃいますか also be accepted as a correct answer?

  2. Why two honorific verbs are being used? Wouldn’t 今何を勉強していらっしゃいますか be honorific enough (@Pushindawood 先生の答え above and Genki II suggests this is the case - if I understood things correctly …) していらっしゃいます is marked as wrong.

You cant combine なさる and いらっしゃる。You cant say していらっしゃる .

The correct answer should be something like 今は何を勉強なさっていますか。When using て form of keigo, it is perfectly OK to use います after it. There are exceptions, but usually limited to highly formal situations, いたしております for example.

1 Like

Why is いらっしゃった not accepted for this sentence?

お客さんがいらっしゃいました

Maybe it’s unnatural to end a sentence without a polite form if the sentence contains an honorific?

1 Like

Hi!

I have a question regarding the example below

日本語を教えていらっしゃると聞きました

Why is いらっしゃる correct here?

The verb 教える is not 居る, 来る or 行く, so how come it fits in this sentence?

The bunpro explanation doesn’t mention any exceptional use of this grammatical structure.

Looking forward to any replies.

Cheers!

It’s not just 教える but 教えている.

Ah, that makes perfect sense now.

Thanks!