敬語 [polite language]head ache

Japanese
#1

My question is “how do you know which '敬語 to use in Bunpro?” Or “Is there a better way to learn 敬語 than bunpro?”
But reply with any advice or complaints about 敬語

Below is all the 敬語 I can think of
In Jalup I learned some japanese words for 敬語
敬語[keigo]、尊敬語(also keigo) 謙譲語(also also? keigo) And丁寧 regular です/ます。
I learned all these different ways to be polite from bunpro:
putting an お before a 訓読み or a ご before an 熟語 makes it more polite
like ごちそうさまでした、お湯、

adding なさい like ごめんなさい or ください to the end makes it more polite

you can use stem instead of て like しばらくお待ちください。

you can add stem になる to make something more polite, like お覧になる

and there are some words that change Here is the list I have from genki:
行く くる can be いらっしゃる like いらっしゃいませ
or they can be まいる - google maps says this one all the time
あげる can be 差し上げる
人 can be 名 like 何名様?
です can be でござる
いるcan be おる
or いらっしゃる
食べる can be 頂く like いただきます
もらう can be 頂く too
する can be いたす like どういたしまして
言う can be 申す like ノックスと申します。
Can also be おっしゃる
座って can be かかる - when I got a kimono rental the clerk told me this one
ご覧になる is 見る

That’s all the ones I can think of…

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#2

This is the only split you need to worry about - just try to remember what usage belongs to what category as a starting point. Unless you are an advanced learner no one will expect you to go beyond 丁寧語 outside of set phrases as a foreigner so I wouldn’t stress too much about it. Of course you need to learn to understand it even if you don’ use it yourself.

I believe based on your previous posts I’ve seen that you live in Japan so learning to understand keigo shouldn’t be anywhere near as difficult as it is for people who live outside of Japan as all customer service stuff, tonnes of documents, most interactions in shops, etc etc all use keigo. I struggle to use keigo outside of the most common patterns and I especially cannot use the super humble language as there really is an art to grovelling but unless you are working in a customer facing role then there is very little call to use that kind of language in daily life.

By the way, I don’t have time this second but you may want to double-check your list as some things are perhaps slightly off or paint an incomplete picture. I guess that is why you made the post though （笑）I may come back another day to add some clarification instead of just a cryptic comment and running (like now…).

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#3

It sounds like maybe you are focusing on the wrong part of polite speech? Or maybe the thing you’re looking for us to teach is not something that we specialize in.

The main things that we teach are verbs, and their respective groupings. These are the parts of keigo that are part of the JLPT. The take home points are -

丁寧語 - Polite (use with anyone).
尊敬語 - About other people and their actions.
謙譲語 - About you and your actions.

These three bits of information, or ‘rules’ can be applied to any part of keigo as a whole. It will show you straight away what type of word something is.

れる・られる、くださる、てくださる、お・ご～になる、お・ご～になれる、おっしゃる、いらっしゃる、ていらっしゃる、召す、お気に召す、召しあがる、なさる
おいで
見える
お越し
ご存じ
お・ご～です

All of these can only be used about the person you are respecting, never yourself, so we know straight away that they are 尊敬語. With the verbs what’s the common theme? Something is being lowered (くださる), or something’s presence is being highlighted in your own space (召す、なる、なさる、見える、れる・られる). Something is lowering or coming/becoming into our space, so we know that the doer is not us.

申し上げる、存じ上げる、差し上げる、いただく、ていただく、お・ご～いただく、うかがう、参上、お目にかかる、お目にかける、ご覧に入れる、お耳に入れる、申す、まいる、てまいる、ておる
お・ご～する、お・ご～願う、お・ご～できる、お・ご～にあずかる、お・ご～にいたす
たまわる、うけたまわる、拝見、拝借、拝察

All of these can only be used about you or your family etc, never another, so we know straight away that they are 謙譲語. Looking at all of the verbs, what is the common theme? あげる, いただく, うかがう, かける, かかる, いれる, まいる, もうす, おる. The common theme is going up/entering the space of another to perform a task. The person doing the verb is being displaced, because they are the not the one being respected.

Any plain words that do not signify either going up/entering, or coming down/becoming will be plain 丁寧語. This goes for です、ます、どうぞ、どうも、あちら、そちら、こちら、どなた、いかが, etc etc.

It seems that a few of the ones that you have listed as 尊敬語 are actually 謙譲語.

Sorry if I totally misunderstood the question and wrote a bunch of irrelevant information :confounded:. Hope some of the patterns are useful at least!

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#4

Are you sure about the English translations (humble vs honorable)?
Looking at the kanji used for respect and modesty they seem to be switched.
This might add to the confusion with this really complicated topic.

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#5

Thanks, I fixed it

#6

By bunpro problem is: bunpro taught me all these different ways to be polite
And I struggle knowing which method it wants. Maybe Genki 2 has some exercises?

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#7

Maybe when you’re looking at the translations, just focus on who the person actually doing the action is. If it’s you, it will be 謙譲語, if it’s someone else, it will be 尊敬語.

#8

Unless it’s someone in your own “group” (like own family, own company) and your talking to someone outside that group?

Please correct me if that’s not true. I am still not really familiar with 敬語.

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#9

Well you may still use 尊敬語 to talk to someone that is ‘in your group’, like a boss at work or something like that, but the closer they get to you, the less likely it becomes that you would use 尊敬語. Instead you would just use 丁寧語 if you were talking to like your immediate boss or something.

Really it depends on the company and the what the company culture is. 尊敬語 creates distance, so I doubt you’d use it with anyone you were actually close with. For argument’s sake, let’s say your immediate boss = 丁寧語, one boss above them = 丁寧語・尊敬語, one boss above them again/people that run the company = 尊敬語.

But yeah, your own family you wouldn’t use 尊敬語 for, as they’re not ‘others’ mentally. This one is kinda tricky. I just asked @Haru and really the only time you’d use 尊敬語 for your own family is if your parents etc were some super amazing people (head of some warrior clan/huge company or something) and you think of them more as a figurehead than as a family member.

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#10

Thank you. That exactly was going to be my next question.

What I meant above was:

If I was talking to my company clients and I was in let’s call it “敬語 mode”. I would be using 尊敬語 when saying something about the clients and 謙譲語 when saying something about myself. Now in this situation, if for some reason I had to say something about my own children (or even about my high level boss) to the client, I would use 謙譲語 while referring to what they did or do. Because when talking to the client, I should be humble about my own family and my own company, even though when talking to my high level boss directly I would use 尊敬語 about them?

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#11

Is my understanding correct about the following:

As long as I don’t work for a Japanese company and never work with Japanese clients in a service/customer setting, nobody will ever expect me to actively use 尊敬語 or 謙譲語 (except a few fixed expressions, like with ございます). 丁寧語 will be enough?

It is of course important to understand 敬語 as a reader/listener since it will be everywhere in businesses and announcements etc.

So as long as you not planning to work in Japan, understanding is enough, and maybe not worry too much about using it?

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#12

That’s where it gets difficult :upside_down_face:.

There will always be certain things that you need to keep in mind, but the main one is, who is the action that you are talking about in relation to. If it is in relation to the customer etc, then you’ll use 謙譲語. For example -

責任者がこの件について説明いたしますので、しばらくお待ちください。
‘My boss will explain about this, so please wait a moment.’

In this case, 説明 is something that is in relation to the customer, so even though the person is your boss, the focus of the action is in relation to your customer, so you’d use 謙譲語 for your boss’ actions.

Regarding your question about actions that don’t relate to the customer… That kinda breaks my mind, as I can’t imagine a situation where you would be talking to someone that you need to use 尊敬語 with, but the actions don’t actually relate to them at all. I have never even really seen this type of conversation occur. Basically if you’re telling someone that you need to speak 尊敬語 with about personal unrelated events/actions, that in itself is probably weird.

Absolutely. I have never once used anything above 丁寧語 when speaking to someone in Japan. This isn’t because I am rude, I think that it would be perhaps more strange for me to attempt to do so, as Japanese people already see me as someone that exists outside of those restrictions. That’s not a bad thing in any way, it’s just how it is. The important thing for you though will just be ‘understanding’ it (unless of course you are in a Japanese company like you mentioned).

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#13

Another question about 丁寧語:

The concept of 丁寧語 exists in languages like Spanish and German as well.
But there, it is used only when talking to people you are not close to, when talking
to strangers that are older than you, or at least in German to younger people in a business/official setting.

But you would never use the 丁寧語 equivalent inside your family or with friends, among students, people you meet regularly in a private setting.

Now from watching anime and Japanese TV series I get the impression that Japanese people actually use 丁寧語 when talking to their siblings (if older) or their parents? Or that students in school use 丁寧語 when talking to older students. That sounds very weird to me. Is this really a thing in real life?

If I used 丁寧語 in my native language to talk to my parents, they would think I was joking.

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#14

If my boss were to ask me about my language studies or holiday travel plans, for example, I could not use 謙譲語Ⅰ, not only because he doesn’t actually understand Japanese, but also because 謙譲語Ⅰ is only used with actions that are directed at a target of respect.

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#15

This. The only time it becomes confusing is drawing the line between an action that is directed at someone and an action that is not. I can’t think of a good example off the top of my head, but I assume it’s probably the same type of thing natives struggle with. Maybe something like giving a report on a situation to your boss where the situation does not involve him but he has some kind of interest in the outcome. :man_shrugging:

You are, however, technically correct. The best kind of correct :sunglasses:.

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#16

This made me chuckle

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#17

Students in a school using 丁寧語 to an older student is a normal thing that happens in real life. Some people will even use 丁寧語 towards people in their friend groups if the friend is older than them. This is because even though they are your friend they are still technically your senpai.

Using 丁寧語 when talking to siblings is a bit strange, and I feel like if people did it, they would only do it if they were joking or being sarcastic. However, I would not say it does not happen since I knew families that made their kids use 丁寧語 when talking to their parents. Although I think using 丁寧語 with immediate family members is strange, it is common for people to use it when talking to relatives (aunts and uncles) that you are not too close with. For example, I will talk to some of my uncles like I do with my parents, but with uncles I’m not close with, I usually use 丁寧語.

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#18

丁寧語 toward your family I feel is similar to a certain style of posh speaking in English. While it is not natural, you will hear it all the time, especially with sarcasm like you mentioned, regardless of if the person you’re speaking to is older or younger. LIke 弟よ、彼女ができたと聞きましたが、それはあっていますか？ to your little brother wouldn’t sound weird to me, as it would be the same as ‘I happened to hear that you got a girlfriend oh dearest brother of mine. Would that happen to be true?’.

Learning when to use 丁寧語 jokingly may actually be harder than 尊敬語 or 謙譲語 :sweat_smile:

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#19

Breaking your mind was certainly not my intention :sweat_smile:

Let me explain the type of situation I had in mind:

In my culture it is quite common to make small talk with customers/clients before or after meetings. Let’s say a client visits my company for a business meeting. I welcome the client at our company’s front desk and lead them through the building to the meeting room. We need to take an elevator and walk a bit. This takes a few minutes. We make small talk to fill the otherwise awkward silence.

Let’s say the client’s company is in Paris, so I might say something like “Has the weather in Paris been this rainy as well?”. After their answer I might continue “I visited Paris last summer with my wife and kids and we really enjoyed it. My daughters especially loved going to the top of the Eiffel tower.”

Another situation for small talk would be, if we are in the meeting room waiting for more client employees (e.g. their boss) to arrive, if they travel separately.

I just naively assumed that this type of small talk was a thing in other countries as well.
But now it seems like this is too unprofessional for Japan?

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#20

What is the difference between
お待ちください。
and 待っていただけませんか
The both are polite ways of asking someone to wait? One the 待つ is more polite with the お, and ください and 頂く are both polite versions of くれる.

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