11

I work in an American subsidiary of a Japanese company.　I met a few Japanese colleagues while working at the home office on an exchange. Do I need to use Keigo for:

Colleague A: 1 year younger in age than me and joined the company at a later time. It seems like I could use the desu/masu form without Keigo, but since we belong to different departments, different branches, etc., I'm not sure whether he is in-group or out-group.

Colleague B: Not 100% certain about age and seniority, but probably the same age and seniority as me or my junior.

Colleague C: 6 years younger than me and much less seniority. Should I use plain forms to talk down to him? I decided not to since I wasn't sure whether we were all in-group or considered out-group.

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    By "desu/masu form without keiko", are you using keigo in the narrow sense, namely the honorific form and humble form, but not the polite form?
    – user458
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 0:34
  • 1
    i talk in the polite form because I don't know whether I need to speak using honorific and humble forms to these colleagues.
    – pingish
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 1:28
  • Talk to a higher-ranked member of another department, and see how (s)he answers :)
    – Axioplase
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 4:37
  • +1 Great question!
    – istrasci
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 14:24
  • 1
    @千里ちゃん: My managers don't ever use desu and masu when talking to their subordinates and they use 君 alot too when speaking to them.
    – Mark Hosang
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 9:20

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

I think in general you are safe using plain form with people in your group who are younger than you and in lower position (usually the same at a Japanese company though).

the tricky part is someone who is younger than you in a different dpt. I would just use Teine-go which is what desu/masu can be referred to.

In general, you don't need to use keigo in your office while talking to people unless there is a huge gap in level. Like talking to a dept manager/CEO or what not.

Improve this answer
0

The answer to this can be extremely company-specific, particularly in a company with a significant presence in the US.

Colleague A: 1 year younger in age than me and joined the company at a later time. It seems like I could use the desu/masu form without Keigo, but since we belong to different departments, different branches, etc., I'm not sure whether he is in-group or out-group.

In a cross-department meeting or a one-on-one meeting, standard desu/masu forms are appropriate. If you're both talking to a customer (or other outsider), humble forms are often appropriate for anything/anyone related to your company.

Colleague B: Not 100% certain about age and seniority, but probably the same age and seniority as me or my junior.

Stick with desu/masu, unless it fits into the last comment below.

Colleague C: 6 years younger than me and much less seniority. Should I use plain forms to talk down to him? I decided not to since I wasn't sure whether we were all in-group or considered out-group.

There are two places you will routinely hear 'plain forms' in a business setting.

  1. Coworkers who are extremely casual (depending on the corporate culture)
  2. Speaking down to direct reports. Especially first line managers will routinely use casual (or even fairly rough) speech with their direct reports.

Everyone else pretty much always uses at least desu/masu forms.

You choose honorific predicates depending on who you're talking about, not who you're talking to. Speaking to a direct report about the VPs/visitors upcoming trip might involve the plain-form of いらっしゃる.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .