When to use ご or お~いたす and how to detect words of chinese origin

[Blues]

Hello,
I’m a little confused about ご/お~いたす’s explanation,

Apparently, the usual would be お but sometimes it’s ご (and sometimes nothing). However, I don’t really understand what prompts one or the other for the the する verb, in the explanation it loosely say it’s お if it’s japanese origin and ご if it’s chinese origin.

Maybe it’s obvious and I never got it but how do I detect that? I think I’ve heard somewhere that all [Verb]+する were of chinese origin as in “we put a hanzi word and added する to it and boom, verb time” but there’s exception to that? Do I have to learn in a case-by-case basis or there’s little trick to find it?

I also actually don’t think I fully understand what the little (1) means, is it お電話いたします? That’s the exception? Or it’s the opposite and it should be ご電話いたします.

Probably easier than I think but I cannot wrap my head around it to correctly integrate that tid-bit.

Thanks in advance.

[CursedKitsune]

As a general rule お comes before Japanese origin words and ご comes before Chinese origin words, as you say. I think you probably already know how to generally tell the difference between those so I won’t expand on it.

The ones listed under the する exceptions are all words that take お despite being Chinese origin words. For whatever reason they have ended up taking お. It is pretty random but the normal explanation that natives give is that those words are common or normal or frequent enough that they don’t “feel” like onyomi/Chinese origin words despite clearly being Chinese origin words (similar thing with タバコ and 缶 being from European languages but lots of Japanese people think they are Japanese origin or feel like they are purely Japanese even if they know otherwise). Knowing which words take お as an exception is a matter of experience only as far as I know, kinda like knowing which iru/eru ending verbs are actually godan and not ichidan or something. For some words I think there is actually spit usage or debate about what is correct although I am not too sure.

Some common examples of onyomi/Chinese origin words that take お that you might know already: お肉、お会計、お菓子

[Blues]

Hi there! Thanks for your answer! I guess I’ll have to learn them by experience then, iru/eru is already a bit messy but it starts to stick so o/go will enter my brain at some point.

However,

@CursedKitsune

I think you probably already know how to generally tell the difference between those so I won’t expand on it.

Actually, no, I don’t really know how to tell the difference between the two. I suppose I could hazard some like 着物 may be japanese in origin and I know that some like 漢字 are chinese but I don’t know what grand rules can help you detect it. Is it related to on/kun yomi pronunciation?

Thanks!

[Jose7822]

The basic rule, in order to differentiate between Onyomi and Kunyomi readings, is that Onyomi words are usually (but not always) those with two or more Kanji slapped together. Kunyomi words, on the other hand, are usually those made up of a Kanji with hiragana around it. Of course, there are exceptions.

As for differentiating between いる/える verbs, here’s a chart that has most of the exception verbs (the vast majority being actual いる／える verbs):

*Image taken from Tokini Andy YouTube video.

HTH!

[Blues]

A bit late but thanks for this image, it’ll come in handy!