Japanese can be roughly separated into three levels of politeness: casual, polite, and honorific\/humble. So far, we have already gone over the polite forms using \u300c\uff5e\u3067\u3059\u300d and \u300c\uff5e\u307e\u3059\u300d. We will now cover the next level of politeness using honorific and humble forms. You will often hear this type of language in any customer\/consumer type situations such as fast food counters, restaurants, etc. For now, the first thing to remember is that the speaker always considers himself\/herself to be at the lowest level. So any actions performed by oneself are in humble form while actions performed by anyone else seen from the view of the speaker uses the honorific form.<\/p>\n
The difficult part of learning honorific and humble language is that there are a number of words that have separate verbs for honorific and humble forms. Anything that does not have its own special expression fall under the general rules of humble and honorific conjugations that we will cover next.<\/p>\n
| Plain<\/th>\n | Honorific<\/th>\n | Humble<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| \u3059\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u306a\u3055\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u81f4\u3059<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n| \u884c\u304f<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3044\u3089\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span>\uff0f\u304a\u3044\u3067\u306b\u306a\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u53c2\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u6765\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3044\u3089\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span>\uff0f\u304a\u3044\u3067\u306b\u306a\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u53c2\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u3044\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3044\u3089\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span>\uff0f\u304a\u3044\u3067\u306b\u306a\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u304a\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u898b\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3054\u89a7<\/span>\u306b\u306a\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u62dd\u898b<\/span>\u3059\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u805e\u304f<\/span><\/td>\n | \uff0d<\/td>\n | \u4f3a\u3046<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u8a00\u3046<\/span><\/td>\n | \u304a\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u7533\u3059<\/span>\uff0f\u7533\u3057\u4e0a\u3052\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u3042\u3052\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \uff0d<\/td>\n | \u5dee\u3057\u4e0a\u3052\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u304f\u308c\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u4e0b\u3055\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \uff0d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u3082\u3089\u3046<\/span><\/td>\n | \uff0d<\/td>\n | \u3044\u305f\u3060\u304f<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u98df\u3079\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u53ec\u3057\u4e0a\u304c\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3044\u305f\u3060\u304f<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u98f2\u3080<\/span><\/td>\n | \u53ec\u3057\u4e0a\u304c\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3044\u305f\u3060\u304f<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \u77e5\u3063\u3066\u3044\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n | \u3054\u5b58\u77e5<\/span>\uff08\u3067\u3059\uff09<\/td>\n | \u5b58\u3058\u308b<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | Honorific verbs with special conjugations<\/h3>\nA number of these verbs do not<\/u> follow the normal masu-conjugation rules and they include: \u300c\u306a\u3055\u308b<\/span>\u300d\u3001\u300c\u3044\u3089\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span>\u300d\u3001\u300c\u304a\u3063\u3057\u3083\u308b<\/span>\u300d\u3001\u300c\u4e0b\u3055\u308b<\/span>\u300d\u3001 and \u300c\u3054\u3056\u308b<\/span>\u300d (which we will soon cover). For all masu-form tenses of these verbs, instead of the \u300c\u308b\u300d becoming a \u300c\u308a\u300d as it does with normal u-verbs, it instead becomes an \u300c\u3044\u300d. All other conjugations besides the masu-form do not change from regular u-verbs.<\/p>\n We can now begin to see that \u300c\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044<\/span>\u300d is just a special conjugation of \u300c\u4e0b\u3055\u308b<\/span>\u300d which is the honorific version of \u300c\u304f\u308c\u308b<\/span>\u300d. Let’s look at some actual examples. Since these examples are all questions directed directly to someone (second person), they all use the honorific form.<\/p>\n The following examples are all actions done by the speaker so they all use the humble form.<\/p>\n In addition to these set expressions, there are some words that also have more polite counterparts. Probably the most important is the politer version of \u300c\u3042\u308b<\/span>\u300d, which is \u300c\u3054\u3056\u308b<\/span>\u300d. This verb can be used for both inanimate and animate objects. It is neither honorific nor humble but it is a step above \u300c\u3042\u308b<\/span>\u300d in politeness. However, unless you want to sound like a samurai, \u300c\u3054\u3056\u308b<\/span>\u300d is always used in the polite form: \u300c\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3059<\/span>\u300d.<\/p>\n By extension, the politer version of \u300c\u3067\u3059\u300d is \u300c\u3067\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3059<\/span>\u300d. This is essentially the masu-form conjugation of \u300c\u3067\u3054\u3056\u308b<\/span>\u300d, which comes from \u300c\u3067\u3042\u308b<\/span>\u300d literally meaning, “to exist as” (to be covered much later).<\/p>\n Other examples include \u300c\u3044\u3044<\/span>\u300d, which is more formally expressed as \u300c\u3088\u308d\u3057\u3044<\/span>\u300d. There are also six different ways to say, “I’m sorry” (not counting \u300c\u60aa\u3044<\/span>\u306d\u300d or slight inflection changes like \u300c\u3059\u3044\u307e\u305b\u3093<\/span>\u300d).<\/p>\n Successively politer expressions for apologizing:<\/p>\n In addition, the politest suffix for names is \u300c\u69d8<\/span>\u300d, one level above \u300c\u3055\u3093\u300d. You won’t be using this suffix too often in actual speech even if you speak to that person in honorific\/humble speech. However, expect to use it when writing letters even to people you are somewhat familiar with. Also, service people such as cashiers or waitresses\/waiters will normally refer to the customer as \u300c\u304a\u5ba2\u69d8<\/span>\u300d. Of course, royalty and deities are always accompanied by \u300c\u69d8<\/span>\u300d such as \u300c\u795e\u69d8<\/span>\u300d.<\/p>\n For all other verbs without set expressions, there are conjugation rules to change them into honorific and humble forms. They both involve a common practice of attaching a polite prefix \u300c\u5fa1<\/span>\u300d. In Japanese, there is an practice of attaching an honorific prefix \u300c\u5fa1<\/span>\u300d to certain (not all) nouns to show politeness. In fact, some words like \u300c\u304a\u9152<\/span>\u300d\u3001 \u300c\u304a\u8336<\/span>\u300d\u3001or \u300c\u304a\u91d1<\/span>\u300d come with this prefix so often that it’s become practically the word itself. In general, \u300c\u5fa1<\/span>\u300d is written in hiragana as either \u300c\u3054\u300d for words read as \u97f3\u8aad\u307f<\/span> \uff08e.g. \u3054\u610f\u898b<\/span>\u3001\u3054\u98ef<\/span>\uff09 or \u300c\u304a\u300d for words read as \u8a13\u8aad\u307f<\/span> \uff08e.g. \u304a\u91d1<\/span>\u3001 \u304a\u4ed5\u4e8b<\/span>\uff09. In fact, you may have been using this prefix already without realizing it like \u300c\u304a\u597d\u307f\u713c\u304d<\/span>\u300d or \u300c\u304a\u571f\u7523<\/span>\u300d. There are some exceptions to this rule such as \u300c\u304a\u8fd4\u4e8b<\/span>\u300d. Luckily since \u300c\u5fa1<\/span>\u300d is rarely written in kanji, identifying the exceptions should not really be a problem.<\/p>\n The honorific form of verbs that are not among the set honorific expressions given above<\/i> can be formed in two different ways.<\/p>\n |