Questions tagged [politeness]
丁寧表現（待遇表現）. From social politeness ("please", "thank you", etc) to the technical Japanese grammatical concepts of honorifics and respectful and humble forms known as "keigo".
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Is it natural to use 謙譲語 after being addressed with 尊敬語? [duplicate]
Can someone please explain why the answer to the following question is a and not b?
今朝の新聞、お読みになりましたか?
a. いいえ、 読んでいませんが
b. いえ、お読みしませんでした
Is weird to use 謙譲語 after someone has addressed you using 尊敬語?...
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Are questions ending in は polite or plain?
On my grammar textbook, there is a part about the possibility to ask a question with just the topic and は, for example:
お仕事は?
That can mean "what is your job?" or "how is work?".
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Which verbs can come with Vていただけませんか and Vていただきたい?
There is somewhat similar question, but mine is not about the degrees of politeness.
As far as I understand, Vていただけませんか literally means something like “would I be able to get V from you?”. So, it's ...
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How do you politely refer to a group of people with the pronoun you?
Specifically, if a teacher said "I've finished grading your tests.", adressing the students, would he use あなた? I've seen it been said a couple times that あなた isn't that polite, so would the ...
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How would you express the phrasing “Courtesy of [x]” in Japanese?
I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out how to phrase this sort of thing. I’m thinking of this in the context of “acknowledging that someone has formally done a service for another”.
Examples might ...
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How does a parent address their child's teacher or principal?
Would the honorific さま (-sama) surfice when addressing a teacher or principal? I'm uncertain if a parent would use 先生 (sensei) or こうちょうせんせい (kōchōsensei) as it's not their teacher, but their child's.
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Keigo ます after a noun
I found this sentence in an anime.
娘さんたちも悲しみます
The context is that this lady is dying and a guy says to her that her daughters will be sad.
I understand that he transformed the adjective 悲しい into a ...
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How to address someone like the owner of a guesthouse
So I am currently in Japan for vacation and also some short work visit and had the chance to use Japanese a little. I learnt things mostly from reading, so I struggled to formulate things verbally in ...
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when is てます used over ています if you are supposed to be talking "polite"
I understand that てる and てます are basically shortened versions of ている and ています, but if you are supposed talking "formally"/"polite" why would you use a shortened version?
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When speaking openly with a group of people, is it okay to speak casually with some and formally with others?
Say that I'm having lunch with my buddy outside, and my boss comes over and starts talking to me. Obviously, with my boss, I'll talk with proper keigo and stuff. But in front of my boss, am I allowed ...
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Are 腹違い (harachigai) and 種違い (tanechigai) rude terms to use when referring to half-siblings?
腹違い and 種違い are ways to refer to siblings born of different mothers/fathers. Are these terms rude/disrespectful? Or are they about as innocuous as saying "half-siblings"?
Also, I could open ...
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When speaking to a family (where they all have the same last name), is it okay to refer to people by their first name?
Say I know a woman named Satou Hanako, whom I would refer to as "Satou-san". If I meet her family (mom, dad, big brother, big sister, etc.), and they introduce themselves by name, how should ...
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Difference between last name (no honorific) and first name (with honorific)?
So I know that you usually call people by last name with honorifics, but I was wondering what the difference was between last name without honorifics and first name with honorifics? When would you use ...
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Kaguya-sama: Dropping keigo when narrating?
Related: Kaguya-sama: 女の子 (onnanoko) as an opposite for 男子 (danshi)?
In Kaguya-sama Chapter 52 / S02E02, there's a character named Moeha Fujiwara (the imouto of a main character Chika Fujiwara) who ...
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Motokano S01E01: Addressing / referring your step-parents as 1st name-san vs aunt / uncle
1st episode of new anime adaptation of light novel series My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex aka Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta:
Widow Mineaki, father of male protagonist Mizuto, has recently ...
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Motokano S01E05: Is it common to change how you address your spouse (like as follows), and why might you do this?
Well you might change how you address your spouse when you've having sex vs, say, you both work together and when you're in a business meeting. But I'm asking mainly like as follows:
5th episode of ...
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When are less syllables or words MORE formal / LESS casual? Eg Goodbye: じゃあね vs just じゃあ
That Japanese Man Yuta seems to say じゃあね (jaa ne) is actually LESS formal / MORE casual compared to じゃあ.
Btw, is the n supposed to be in red too?
What's up with that MORE syllables are actually LESS ...
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Formality of: おXなされてくださりませ
What nuance would be given by this pattern, example:
お助けなされてくださりませ
Please help me
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The Quintessential Quintuplets: Can you use 1st name with the honorific -sensei?
From S01E06 of the anime adaptation of the manga The Quintessential Quintuplets:
The male protagonist Fuutarou Uesugi is a smart but poor high school student who is tutoring these 5 (currently 3 in ...
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What is a good/polite expression for the word "ma'am"?
Doing some translation work for a comic and I'm trying to come up with a good alternative for ma'am. The specific context of the scene is a cop arriving at a crime scene and asking a woman, "Ma'...
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Is「お元気ですか」an honorific speech and can it be used between lovers?
The question is raised from the famous movie Love Letter (ラブレター), where Hiroko cried to her dead boyfriend Itsuki and said 「お元気ですか？あたしは元気です。」.
But I'm taught that the「です」's after sentences and 「お」's ...
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Is 何人ですか a rude question?
「国籍はどこですか」ではなくて「何人ですか」と聞いたことや、名前がカタカナだったので外国人だと思って、在留カードを見せるように言ったことがありました。
There were cases where [the police] asked people "what is your nationality" rather than "what is your ...
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verb stem+masu vs verb stem+suru
Example:
引っ越す
引っ越しします
I know they have the same meaning but what are the small details? I remember seeing the structure お+verb stem+する used in humble speech, but here the お is omitted.
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Difference between using -san and -shi
I was at an event with high ranking Japanese personal, heads of a martial arts organisation. People were asking for signatures on event passes, which had their name written on it. As part of the ...
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Stubbornly gender-neutral way to address or refer to your older sibling? (Wait a minute...what about non-binary?)
I believe Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog/Filipino/Philippine and English (I'm a monolinguist from HK and the Philippines) don't have this, and so Japanese probably doesn't either, but here goes:
Is ...
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Usage of "Itadakimasu" for digital objects
Here it reads :
As we mentioned earlier, itadaku means "to receive" or "to accept."
But it's not a direct translation of the concept in English. There are
certain situations where ...
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How I address a juniour colleague is different from how I refer to the colleague around the colleague's sibling?
From S02E10 of the anime adaptation of the manga The Quintessential Quintuplets:
Above, Miku Nakano (left) is a younger identical quintuplet of Yotsuba Nakano (right). Miku and Yotsuba are high ...
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Kaguya-sama: Changing the way you address someone without your relationship having changed
Question:
Is it common in Japanese to (temporarily? permanently?) change the way you address to someone even if your relationship has not changed because of certain intent say, you want to intimidate ...
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Is this 'onee-san' address sarcastic or something?
S01E03 of anime adaptation of the LN/manga The Devil Is a Part-Timer!
See here 1:18 - 1:32 There are these 2 characters Chiho and Emi who meet for the 1st time when Emi interrupts Chiho's profession (...
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Motokano S01E01: Why when being romantically affectionate do these ex-romantic partner step-siblings call each other by last name?
1st episode of new anime adaptation of light novel series My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex aka Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta:
Yume Ayai and Mizuto Irido have recently become step-siblings. ...
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How relevant is gender in comparing last name-kun/chan compare to 1st name-san?
Re these questions:
How does last name-kun/chan compare to 1st name-san?
(Danganronpa) Why does Naegi call Togami "kun" and Aoi "san"?
(Kaguya-sama) WWhy does Chika call Miyuki ...
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How does last name-kun/chan compare to 1st name-san?
Let's say the person is John Smith, first name John, last Smith.
Comparing the following pairs is easy. The latter is more formal than the former.
John-kun vs John-san
Smith-kun vs Smith-san
John-kun ...
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When conjugating adjectives, can we use the normal form of the adjective and use the copula です to indicate its form?
This is specifically for い-adjectives, as な-adjectives work this way.
For example, when I want to say something is not delicious I'd usually say おいしくない.
Would it be possible to use おいしい じゃありません and ...
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ので with requests [duplicate]
I was consulting my grammar book (A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar), when I came upon the following passage (page 323):
Now this is all well and good. But it's a bit conflicting with an ...
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てくれて for a softened request
Suppose I'm making a casual request, and I want something in between 見てね, which is more of a command and 見てくれる?, which is more of a request. Is 見てくれて natural?
Or maybe I'm looking for something else ...
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Do ~ではなかったです / ~じゃなかったです sound natural?
I'm compiling a chart for conjugating nouns, i-adjectives, and na-adjectives for a Japanese beginner, but I'm running into some difficulties in the negative tenses. I'd like this chart to be accurate ...
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How do I apologize for unintentionally saying something linked to other people's private difficulties?
I was in conversation with an acquaintance. They start talking about their kid, so I said something intended as a compliment to their child, but that led to them telling me about their kid's ...
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How to give a "professional" compliment as a brief aside ("I just wanted to say…", "As a side note, I really…", etc.)?
Say you're having a conversation with someone broadly in the same line of work as you whom you don't know very well, in an only mildly informal setting—like, near the snack table after a talk you both ...
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推薦書を書いて下さいました。vs (先生に)ピアノを教えていただきました。
1 - 推薦書を書いて下さいました。
2 - (先生に)ピアノを教えていただきました。
I wanted to confirm 2 things.
First is number 1 尊敬語 and is number 2 謙譲語
Second is the reason why 2 is using 謙譲語 because the teacher is part of the speakers ...
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Can I use both ましょう and ですか?
I want to ask someone a question as to whether they want to do something.
Would you like to play Minecraft on the computer?
Would this be written as
コンピューターでマインクラフトをあそびましょうか。
OR
...
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Could 家族 be used for really close friends?
My family has a very good relationship with a Japanese family since many decades ago. When I was a kid, I used to play when their sons, and I visited them once and stayed at their home for a month. ...
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Do friends continue to use chan/kun to refer to each other as adults or do they switch to using san?
Do friends continue to use chan/kun to refer to each other as adults or do they switch to using san?
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うん and ます form in the same sentence
https://twitter.com/MRko_aki___/status/1395581370328489985
A Japanese artist recently tweeted
うん、頑張ります
What is the stylistic reason for combining the casual うん with the polite 頑張ります rather than はい?
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Can you use the base of the 〜ます form to mean "and" in spoken Japanese?
When written I've read that you can use the base of the 〜ます form to mean "and". But does the same rule apply when spoken?
For example, does the following sentence make sense when spoken?
...
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Negative polite ending in compounding sentence
I am a beginner. In the TaeKim Guide textbook, there is a rule for the compounding sentence:
Positive: Conjugate the verb to its past tense and replace 「た」 with 「て」 or 「だ」 with 「で」. This is often ...
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Adding です after 「また(some time/day)」
If I'm trying to say or write "See you on Tuesday" to someone politely, can I say
また火曜日。
or is it better to say
また火曜日です。
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What is the proper usage of この上なく / この上ない?
I have encountered the structure ことこの上ない with the explanation that it is used as
Adjectiveな + ことこの上ない
Adjectiveい + ことこの上ない
with the meaning of "nothing is more 'adjective'". For example &...
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Confusion on the politeness vs. formality terminology
I was reading the "Dictionary of Japanese Grammar" series, and I found the way it uses the term formality vs. politeness contradictory and confusing, so I wanted some clarifications.
Here ...
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「いただきます」 to accept to a food offer?
In this JLPT N3 audio practice question (#3), the correct reply to the statement is 3.
コーヒー、もう一杯いかがですか。
けっこうだと思います。
おかげさまで。
いただきます。
If the question translates as "How about another cup of ...
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Does 「拝見ありがとうございます」 ever make sense?
I have seen this used on a Japanese site by at least two native speakers, usually attached to the end of the post to mean "Thank you for reading". The phrasing simply doesn't make sense to ...
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