Polite patterns – keigo
です/ます, お〜になる, 美化語 – eleven frames you lay over any word, each inside the sentence where it stands.
行きます — ます raises the tone, not a person
This is the zero point: everything keigo adds on top of the polite form itself is measured from 行きます. ます says nothing about who performs the action — it singles nobody out; it lifts the tone of the whole utterance towards the person you are speaking to. That is why 行きます works for yourself and for the listener alike — while 行く without ます is not a grammatical mistake, only a sentence one tone lower. Forms that single someone out look different, and they come right after this one: you say いらっしゃいます when it is the listener who is going.
Examples
- 明日は九時に行きます。
学生です — です does what ます does, where there is no verb
In an “X is Y” sentence です does exactly what ます does with a verb: it raises the tone, not a person. です/だ is the first place where politeness shows in a sentence with no verb — which is why 学生だ sounds wrong to someone you have only just met, even though it contains no form that raises anybody. The first place, but not the only one: でございます stands a step above it, and about a person you want to single out you say でいらっしゃいます.
Examples
- 田中さんは学生ですか。
受付でございます — a step above です, still singles nobody out
でございます is a more courteous です and still singles nobody out. That is why shops and reception desks reach for it when speaking about things, about places and about their own side — that is, themselves, their company and their premises: こちらが受付でございます, 山田でございます. でございます has a second half to it, and it matters just as much: about a person you are singling out you do not say でございます — there でいらっしゃいます takes over (田中様でいらっしゃいますか). About yourself it is the other way round and でございます stays: でいらっしゃいます would be singling yourself out.
Examples
- こちらが受付でございます。
お〜になる — the other person's action
The verb stem goes between お and になる. The pattern covers the action of the person being raised — never one's own.
Examples
- もうお読みになりますか。
お〜する — one's own action towards someone
The same verb stem as in お〜になる, only the other way round: there you raise someone else's action, here you lower your own, directed at someone you respect.
Examples
- 荷物をお持ちします。
ご〜になる — a Sino-Japanese stem
The stem of this pattern is a Sino-Japanese noun (漢語) that becomes an action with する: 利用する, 説明する, 確認する. Such a stem usually takes ご — ご利用になる, ご説明になる, ご確認になる. The exceptions sit in the word itself rather than in the pattern: a few long-settled 漢語 take お and keep it here as well — お電話になる, お約束になる. Those have to be learned one at a time.
Examples
- こちらをご利用になりますか。
ご〜する — one's own action, Sino-Japanese stem
The counterpart of お〜する for Sino-Japanese stems. Common in customer service: ご案内, ご連絡, ご説明.
Examples
- 会場までご案内します。
お + a native word
A native (和語) noun takes お: お名前, お仕事, お荷物. That same お does three different things, and what decides is not the object but whose side the sentence raises. When the thing belongs to the person being raised — お名前, the listener's name — it is 尊敬語, the honorific. When you speak of your own action directed at someone (お手紙を差し上げます), it is 謙譲語Ⅰ, the humble form. And when the word raises nobody and merely lifts the tone — お金, お酒 — it is 美化語; お does not make the money belong to anyone.
Examples
- お名前をお願いします。
ご + a Sino-Japanese word
A Sino-Japanese (漢語) noun takes ご: ご連絡, ご住所, ご意見. The rule has exceptions to be learned separately: お電話, お時間, お食事.
Examples
- ご連絡をお待ちしております。
お茶 — beautifying the word itself
Here お raises nobody and lowers nobody. It raises the word itself — which is why the official guidelines 敬語の指針 (Keigo no shishin) give it a category of its own, 美化語, “beautification”, while textbooks fold it into the polite forms 丁寧語.
Examples
- お茶をどうぞ。
お〜いたす — one step above お〜する
Two things at once: お〜する lowers one's own action towards the person it is directed at, and いたす adds courtesy towards the listener. 敬語の指針 calls such forms 謙譲語Ⅰ兼Ⅱ. Hence their natural place in customer service and correspondence; in private talk they sound artificial.
Examples
- 資料をお送りいたします。
Where this comes from
Everything above comes from the free part of the Keigo app and has passed its content review.
- Keigo: Polite JapaneseFormal Japanese for work
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