Hot answers tagged politeness
28
On a basic level, すみません is to apologize for something that you have a "right" to do, such as when passing through a crowd or getting a waiter's attention at a restaurant. ごめんなさい, on the other hand, is for when you have done something inappropriate. So on the way through a crowd, you would say すみません to ask people to let you through, but if you accidentally ...
18
Japanese has a curious unwritten rule which states, in essence, that you cannot presume to know the intimate details of a third person's mental state. This is quite an unfamiliar concept in English-land:
○ 私【わたし】はDSが欲【ほ】しいです。 I want a DS.
× 息子【むすこ】はDSが欲【ほ】しいです。 My son wants a DS. (OK in English, NG in Japanese)
Even if your son has been begging ...
17
The thing to keep in mind is that this isn't a ritualized situation, such as the 「只今{ただいま}/お帰{かえ}り」, "I'm back/welcome back") call and response pattern. When you come and go from the office or home, there are set patterns. This restaurant situation isn't like that.
Specific to your questions, there is no usual exchange between customer and cashier when ...
17
ちょっといいですか is a casual expression. Depending on the relation between you and your boss, you may not want to use the phrase to your boss.
One of the formal and polite expressions is お時間をいただいてもよろしいですか (おじかんをいただいてもよろしいですか). If you want to state an estimate of the length (say five minutes), you can say something like 五分ほどお時間をいただいてもよろしいですか.
お時間をいただく literally ...
15
You can't just gloss words like that with Japanese (i.e. Thank you = arigatou, go = iku etc.)
To express thankfulness, there is a whole palette of expressions that Japanese people use.
For example:
yoroshiku: said after you have asked someone a big favor and they haven't done it yet but have promised to do it.
tasukatta: means like "thanks man I ...
14
Politeness and Keigo are strongly related, but they are not necessarily the same, neither does one contains all cases of the other.
Politeness (丁寧語 teineigo) is a general term that is used for gauging the acceptability of different forms in different situations. Polite forms are expected to be used in formal situations, with most strangers, with peers you ...
13
Here there's a nice explanation, but I'll quote it here for easy reference, with some additional info:
ください and お願いします are both used when making a request.
ください (kudasai) is used:
After the particle "o" を, for example when ordering food: "水をください" (Mizu o kudasai - Please, water.);
When asking something that involves an action, along with the ...
13
氏名 always refers to a person's full name, both family and given. It also has the connotation of "legal name."
名前 also refers to a person's full name--but it can also mean their given name, in the right context (for instance, "We gave the baby a name" or "I want you to call me by my name"). 名前 can also refer to the names of objects, while 氏名 cannot.
13
Not a bona fide answer, in that I am not confident enough to provide you with a reliable example of what you should be saying, but I can definitely tell you how you should not be saying it (despite some suggestions in the comments to your question):
Any sentence that starts by a word expressing disagreement.
Anything that hints at an actual error made by ...
13
As others have said, this is a really hard question to answer because it is always so context-dependent. This is the sort of thing that Japanese people themselves struggle with, to an extent, especially when people from different generations or backgrounds (Tokyo vs Osaka etc.) are speaking with each other. All those "introduction to keigo" books in the ...
12
It can be. The most common usage of this term is as follows:
A) Hey, I'm going skiing with Jack, together with his brand new girlfriend.
今度ジャックと、ジャックの新カノとスキーに行くんだよ。
B) Why? He has never been skiing and he sucks at sport.
なんでスキーなの？あいつスキーやったことないし運動おんちじゃん。
A) Yeah! It will be a 見物! hahaha
だから見物なんじゃんｗ
When you say 見物, it implies that you are ...
11
'です' does follow i-adjectives. It's purpose is to add politeness. I see no problem with it, but maybe I am missing something. Was there a particular example that was discussed when the person said it is dangerous? The only thing I can think of is that the expression can be made milder by adding the sentence final particle ね, which indicates addresser's ...
11
Matt's answer is a good practical approach for learning how to deal with this issue, but I thought it might be helpful to offer a suggestion about why this is happening to you.
I attended a lecture at Temple University on this very topic, and the professor giving the lecture had the theory that not only are politeness and closeness inversely correlated, but ...
11
As you suspect and Nathan writes, softening the nuance may be one factor, but there is another factor. Without o-, the underlying form is te-araw-, which ends with a verb stem araw (later, the epenthetic vowel i is inserted, and wi changes to i , which is not crucial). Even though a verb stem can be used as a noun, it is often not stable as a noun. Addition ...
11
Both parties can use 失礼します at the end of a phone call, and in fact it is usual that both parties say 失礼します in turn. I think that a phone call is considered to be similar to a conversation between two people who met on the street in this regard. After such a conversation, both parties leave the place, so both say 失礼します. Similarly, after a phone call, both ...
9
Nowadays 外人 and 外国人 are similar in meaning, with the latter seeing less usage. However, traditionally speaking 外人 is a derogatory word that shouldn't be used towards foreigners. 外人 actually doesn't mean foreigner as much as it means "outsider" to a group. So one could technically refer to people in a different social class/group as you as 外人 and ...
9
I'm not sure if there's a real answer to that. At least not something that will help you learn which is which. Some 形容動詞 take な, some take の, and some take both. How did that happen? That's quite simple.
All 形容動詞 are in fact a special class of nouns. In academic English material, they are often called "adjectival nouns" or even "descriptive nouns", to ...
9
There are a couple of ways to say this.
体に気をつけてください → Please look after yourself
体をお大事に → Take care of yourself
However, given the severity of her illness, these sound casual, a little "flaky", and somewhat insincere. Here are a few that are better.
ご自愛を祈ります → Please take good care of yourself / your health.
ご全快の一日も早いことをお祈りいたします → I hope you ...
9
The simplest one is 「いいえ」, "not at all". The next one up is 「どういたしまして」, "would do the same". Another one you may come across is 「とんでもない」, "don't mention it", or one of its more polite variants (replacing 「ありません」 or 「ございません」 as appropriate). There are even more polite responses, but as a 外国人 you will not be expected to have to worry about them.
9
I would say the expression お世話になりました is spot on. Especially since you are trying to express gratitude for guidance, which is contained in the word 世話 "looking after; help; aid; assistance". Moreover, お世話になりました is formal and certainly suitable for a corporate environment. To adapt it to your situation, you could say, e.g.
長い間お世話になりました。
8
Japanese here. I find it fine to say ありがとう for the first two, although どうも is more common. Not saying anything is perfectly acceptable. You can also nod, which is very common.
When you leave the restaurant, it is common to say ごちそうさまで～す or ごちそうさまでした. If you are female, ごちそうさまでした would be more common. It is perfectly ok to leave without saying anything. ...
8
いただきました is past tense of いただく, which is a polite version of もらう, which means 'to receive'.
下さいました is past tense of 下さる, which is a polite version of くれる, which means 'to give'.
They are different words but can be used in the same context as long as you correctly assign who is the giver and who is the receiver. But do take note that the emphasis of the ...
8
Following an い-adjective with です is perfectly acceptable, as in the following examples:
あの人はひどいです。
昨日は楽しかったです。
I don't see any vulgar aspect to 美しいです failing contextual clues that could make nearly any description vulgar.
Something that may be getting confused in all of this is that while the polite form of an い-adjective is followed by です -- ...
8
ごめんください is an idiomatic expression used to attract someone's attention when visitng that person's place. It does not mean 'appology' + 'please give' any more. Pretty much similar to your example but another variant is when you want something at a shop, and you don't see a shop clerk around, you can use this word to call someone. If the person you want to ...
8
The standard formal opening, equivalent to English "Dear Sir/Madam", is 拝啓. The closing, equivalent to "Sincerely Yours", is 敬具. I don't see why you couldn't put in the Chinese greeting as well, along with a little explanation. The teacher might find it interesting/charming, and there's nothing wrong with a little cross-cultural exchange.
8
The basic idea is correct but the details are a bit oversimplified (as you might expect for a comic essay become a TV show).
です did indeed originate in the red light districts of Edo (if you like), but we are not only talking about "geisha" here. First of all, there were men in that industry as well, and they also used です and ます; so did regular customers ...
8
Oh my, a question by sawa!
I suspect I have less of an idea than you do, even -- particularly since I've never even been to a Japanese school! -- but I'll write my thoughts anyway. These are just my feelings and hunches. I hope I'm not wasting everyone's time by writing stuff that's completely wrong. :(
Firstly, I don't think this is just examinations; ...
8
That guy who said that こんばんは isn't heard in everyday conversation is flat out wrong. I really hate when people get up on their high horse about Japanese, especially when they're wrong. Golden rule is, never "heckle" someone over their foreign language ability, because yours will never be perfect either. I've been at this for 11 years and have lived here ...
8
I hope that someone can explain this more accurately, but let me try some explanation.
According to 敬語の指針, the document explaining the use of honorifics in Japanese written by the Council for Cultural Affairs, there are two different kinds of what have been traditionally categorized as 謙譲語 (humble words). Most of them are solely used for actions/belongings ...
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