Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

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".

Covers everything from the social politeness such as the equivalents of English "please" and "thank you" up to the technical Japanese grammatical concepts of honorifics and respectful and humble forms though these latter areas may be better tagged as .

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"You don't have to be so polite." Really?

Sometimes a Japanese person will say to me: そんなに丁寧な言葉を使わなくてもいいんですよ。 This is an invitation to be less formal. But how much less formal? As I have experienced, sometimes unintentional gaffes can be committed blithely as one learns to navigate the…
Robusto
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Politeness in examination questions

1) Why do Japanese school examination questions get more rude as the year gets higher? In elementary school ...してください。 or ...しましょう。 ... です。　...ですか。 In junior high school to high school ...しなさい。 In university ...せよ。　...である。 ...か。 2) When even…
user458
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Correct form of address for a bartender, or itamae

What is the right way to address the bartender? Or the person preparing sushi? On a recent visit I heard マスター used to address a bartender, and I already know that 大将 is one way to address the sushi chef. I have two questions about both the form of…
jogloran
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How to respond when someone praises about my Japanese?

While talking with some Japanese people in an online form, someone said 日本語上手ですね！ to me. I just replied そうですか, but what would be an appropriate way to reply keeping it as less informal as possible. Another important thing is that I believe the OP…
cs12b006
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How can I thank somebody for pointing out my mistakes?

Thanking and apologizing in several forms is essential in a Japanese working environment. I currently have the following list that I have picked up from mails amongst my Japanese coworkers but I'm curious what could be other examples to do…
wallyqs
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What makes 「どこからきた？」 rude?

It was mentioned in a comment that 「どこからきた？」 is not only informal, but outright rude. The way the comment is written makes me think that this goes beyond grammatical politeness and would be improper even in -ます form. Is that true? A naive…
NoxArt
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Is there a convention to always place yourself last in a list of people?

In English, a convention is to always say yourself last in a list of people: (1) Mr. Tanaka and I drank tea. // <--- natural (2) I and Mr. Tanaka drank tea. // <--- grammatically correct but extremely unnatural what about Japanese? (1)…
Just Someone
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Politeness on Twitter

I tweet in Japanese every once in awhile, sometimes to Japanese people and sometimes to all of my followers. I haven't really been able to figure it out, so how does politeness work on Twitter? Some people tweet in 丁寧語{ていねいご}, others don't. Wouldn't…
Darius Jahandarie
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How to respond to ありがとう?

I get it that ありがとう means "thanks", is informal without the ございます added to it and so on. However, I do not know what I should say after someone thanked me. In English, you generally say something like "No problem" or "You're welcome", it is similar…
Adowrath
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How to correctly use でございます when speaking with a superior?

I have heard that some phrases may be used in a humble form when speaking to a superior regardless of whether or not it has an impact on the superior. でございます is one of them. But does that only apply when talking about oneself? For…
Denis Li
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Why would you use まいります for rain? (降ってまいります)

I ran across this example sentence in a basic dictionary, but I can't figure out what particular meaning まいります has in this context. 雨が降ってまいりました。 Generally speaking, it's used as the humble verb for motion. In this case, [参]{まい}る replaces [来]{く}る.…
jkerian
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Making a sentence that ends in なかった polite

What are the different ways to make a sentence that ends in なかった polite?
language hacker
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Should I use sonkeigo if I meet a celebrity?

Yesterday I met a very famous Japanese person. I panicked and asked him, 「写真をとってもよろしいでしょうか」 Was this correct? Or was this too polite and kind of strange?
dattebane
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How to address misbehaving kids (not one's own)

Say you are in public and see some other people's kids misbehaving. What is the appropriate way to address them? (both sexes) Something on the line of: "Hey kid, don't do ..." It might be specific to the degree of misbehavior so let's give some kind…
steros
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Polite speech and うち　よそ

I can't understand the difference between うち and よそ. I learned that they are used in polite speech, for example: ╔════════╦═════════╦═════════════╗ ║ ║ うち ║ よそ ║ ╠════════╬═════════╬═════════════╣ ║ 言います║ 申します ║…
buskila
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