Introduction to Keigo
敬語（けいご) is the word for polite speech in Japanese. It is the bane of many Japanese learners (and Japanese people). It’s a fairly hard topic, but fortunately, especially as a foreigner, you won’t be expected to speak it perfectly. That being said, even if people understand you’re a foreigner, it can still rub them the wrong way.
敬語 is everywhere and at the very least, you need to be able to understand it.
There are 3 basic categories of 敬語:
- 丁寧語 (ていねいご) – Polite words: ます・です
- 謙譲語(けんじょうご) – Humble words (position lowering)
- 尊敬語 (そんけいご) – Respectful words (position raising)
Even if you can’t use respectful or humble words, you should always at least being using 丁寧語 polite words. (です・ます)
Politeness
丁寧語 (ていねいご) is the easiest type of 敬語. It is the ます and です we learned earlier. It describes politeness.
- ケーキを食べます – Eat a cake.
- 猫です – Is a cat.
Respect and Humility
While 丁寧語 expresses politeness, they don’t actually express respect. To do that, you need to use either そんけいご (exalting verbs) or けんじょうご (humbling words).
そんけいご is used to express respect or to exalt the person doing the action. This type of language elevates the position of the actor; which means you should not use it for yourself or your own group.
けんじょうご, on the other hand does the opposite, it expresses the the humility and lowness of the actor. This expresses respect by lowering yourself. This type of language should not be used about the listener. Since けんじょうご lowers yourself compared to the other party, it kind of imparts a meaning of “for you” into the words.
These are talked about more on the 敬語 Verbs and 敬語 Nouns pages.
*Technically, there are 2 types of けんじょうご, but these are not important for most cases. .
Type 1: Actions used towards someone above you (Respectfully do, etc.)
Type 2: Self-lowering words (Humbly, my small self)
内 and 外
うち (in) and そと (out) are Japanese concepts referring to “in” and “out”, but more appropriately translated mean “us” and “them”. This concept is important, because humble and respectful words must be used with regard to these groups.
For そんけいご (respectful speech), you need to use it in regards to the relationship of the person you are talking about with regard to the person you are talking to.
- Within your own company, you may address your boss with そんけいご (i.e. さま)
- However when talking about your boss to another company, you should not use そんけいご about your boss.
This is because that while your boss is さま to you; your boss is not that important to the other company. Your companies employees are the same to the other company. You wouldn’t want to put your own company above the listener.
This is a fairly common mistake amongst Japanese people who get in the habit of using そんけいご about their own boss.