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(honorhum)
    Meaning: Honorific and Humble Forms
    JLPT Level: 0
    Category: lesson
    Author: TaeKim

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Honorific and Humble Forms

Japanese can be roughly separated into three levels of politeness: casual, polite, and honorific/humble. So far, we have already gone over the polite forms using 「~です」 and 「~ます」. We will now cover the next level of politeness using honorific and humble forms. You will often hear this type of language in any customer/consumer type situations such as fast food counters, etc. For now, the first thing to remember is that the speaker always considers himself/herself to be at the lowest level. So any actions performed by oneself are in humble form while actions performed by anyone else seen from the view of the speaker uses the honorific form.

Set Expressions

The difficult part of learning honorific and humble language is that there are a number of words that have separate verbs for honorific and humble forms. Anything that does not have it's own special expression fall under the general rules of humble and honorific conjugations that we will cover next.

Honorific and Humble Verbs
Plain	Honorific	Humble
する	なさる	致す
行く	いらっしゃる／おいでになる	参る
来る	いらっしゃる／おいでになる	参る
いる	いらっしゃる／おいでになる	おる
見る	ご覧になる	拝見する
聞く	-	伺う
言う	おっしゃる	申す／申し上げる
あげる	差し上げる	-
くれる	下さる	-
もらう	-	いただく
食べる	召し上がる	-
知っている	ご存知（です）	存じる

Honorific verbs with special conjugations

A number of these verbs do not follow the normal masu-conjugation rules and they include: 「」、「」、「」、「」、 and 「」 (which we will soon cover). For all masu-form tenses of these verbs, instead of the 「る」 becoming a 「り」 as it does with normal u-verbs, it instead becomes an 「い」. Any conjugations besides the masu-form do not change from regular u-verbs.

ます-conjugations
Plain	ます-form	Past ます-form	Negative ます-form	Past-negative ます-form
なさる	なさいます	なさいました	なさいません	なさいませんでした
いらっしゃる	いらっしゃいます	いらっしゃいました	いらっしゃいません	いらっしゃいませんでした
おっしゃる	おっしゃいます	おっしゃいました	おっしゃいません	おっしゃいませんでした
下さる	下さいます	下さいました	下さいません	下さいませんでした
ござる	ございます	ございました	ございません	ございませんでした

Examples of honorific form

We can now begin to see that 「」 is just a special conjugation of 「」 which is the humble version of 「」. Let's look at some actual examples. Since these examples are all questions directed directly to someone (second person), they all use the honorific form.
（１）　アリスさん、召し上がりましたか。- Alice-san, did [you] eat already?
（２）　でをなさっているんですか。- What are you doing at work?
（３）　をくださいますか。- Can you give me the favor of writing a recommendation letter?
（４）　からいらっしゃいましたか。- Where did you come from?
（５）　、へいらっしゃいますか。- Where are you going today?

Examples of humble form

The following examples are all actions done by the speaker so they all use the humble form.
（１）　はキムと申します。- As for me, [people] say Kim. (I am called Kim.)
（２）　がをいただけますか。
（３）　致します。- Excuse me. (lit: I am doing a discourtesy.)

Other substitutions

In addition to these set expressions, there are some words that also have more polite counterparts. Probably the most important is the politer version of 「」, which is 「」. This verb can be used for both inanimate and animate objects. It is neither honorific nor humble but it is a step above 「」 in politeness. However, unless you want to sound like a samurai, 「」 is always used in the masu-form: 「」.
By extension, the politer version of 「です」 is 「で」. This is essentially the

Examples

（１A）　は、のです。- Over here is my room.
（１B）　は、のでございます。- This way is my room.

（２A）　はのにあります。- The bathroom is in the second floor of this building.
（２B）　はのにございます。- The bathroom is in the second floor of this building.
Other examples include 「」, which is more formally expressed as 「」. There are also six different ways to say, "I'm sorry" (not counting 「ね」 or slight inflection changes like 「」).

Successively politer expressions for apologizing:
（１）　。
（２）　。
（３）　。
（４）　。 ( is the humble form of )
（５）　。
（６）　です。

In addition, the politest suffix for names is 「」, one level above 「さん」. You won't be using this suffix too often in actual speech even if you speak to that person in honorific/humble speech. However, expect to use it when writing letters even to people you are somewhat familiar with. Also, service people such as cashiers or waitresses/waiters will normally refer to the customer as 「」. Of course, royalty and deities are always accompanied by 「」 such as 「」.

Honorific and Humble Conjugations

For any other verbs, there are conjugation rules to change verbs into an honorific and humble form. They both involve a common practice of attaching a polite prefix 「」. In Japanese, there is an annoying practice of attaching an honorific prefix 「」 to certain (not all) nouns to show politeness. In fact, some words like 「」、「」、or 「」 come with this prefix so often that it's become practically the word itself. In general, 「」 is written in hiragana as either 「ご」 for words read as （例：ご、） or 「お」 for words read as （例：、お）. In fact, you may have been using this prefix already without realizing it like 「」 or 「」. There are some exceptions to this rule such as 「お」. Luckily since 「」 is rarely written in kanji, identifying the exceptions should not really be a problem.

Honorific Form

The honorific form of verbs that are not among the set honorific expressions given above can be formed as follows:
Honorific Conjugation: お + stem + に + なる

This kind of makes sense if you think of it as a person becoming the honorific state of a verb. All conjugations follow the normal rules of conjugating the u-verb 「」. To be honest, this type of sentence formulation is rarely used.

（１）　はお考えになりますか。- Teacher, what do you think?

「」, which becomes 「に」 is an exception because instead of the verb stem, a noun is used.
（２）　のをご覧になりましたか。- Have you seen my book?

Here's another possibility:
Honorific Conjugation 2: お + stem + です

You'll hear this as soon as you go into a fast food restaurant.
（１）　でお召し上がりですか。- Will you be dining inside here?
Service people want to be extra polite so they will often use this type of "double honorific" conjugation or . Whether it's necessary or grammatically proper is another story.

（２）　お帰りですか。- You're going home already?
（３）　お手数ですが、をか。- It's a bother for you, but can I receive the favor of you correcting this for me?

Using 「ください」 with honorifics

A more often-used type of honorific expression is the combination of honorific with 「」. This is done by replacing 「に」 with 「」.
Yet another favorite expression.
（１）　お待ちください。- Please wait a moment.

Similarly, with 「に」, you simply replace 「に」 with 「」.
（２）　にご覧下さい。- Please look this way.

This works for other nouns as well. For example, riding the trains...
（３）　にご注意下さい。- Please be careful of the closing doors.

Humble Form

Humble verbs are formed in the following fashion.
Humble Conjugation: お + stem + する

You've probably already heard this before but now you know exactly where it comes from.
（１）　お願いします。- I properly make request.
（２）　、お聞きしたいがが。- Teacher, there's something I want to ask you.
（３）　、お待たせしました。- Sorry, I made you wait (causative form).
（４）　からお預かりいたします。- We'll be holding on [from?] your 1000 yen.
You'll hear something like this, for example, when you need to get change after paying 1000 yen. Again, the where 「」 has been converted to the humble 「」 form when it's already in the お+stem+ humble form. Some Japanese people complain that this makes no sense and that 「から」 should really be 「を」.

Making honorific requests

Now, we're going to look at how that's done using honorific verbs. This grammar only applies to the honorific verbs with special 「~ます」 conjugations that we just covered. This includes 「」、「」、「」、and 「」.　I've never actually seen this used with 「」, but it's grammatically possible.

Making requests for honorific actions

Conjugate the honorific verb to the special masu-conjugation and replace the last 「す」 with 「せ」
例）　下さる → 下さいます → 下さいませ
例）　いらっしゃる → いらっしゃいます → いらっしゃいませ

An abbreviated and less formal version of this is to simply remove the 「ます」 after conjugating to special the masu-form
例）　下さる → 下さいます → 下さい
例）　いらっしゃる → いらっしゃいます → いらっしゃい

Now you finally know where grammar such as 「なさい」 and 「ください」 actually came from. Let's look at a few quick examples.

Examples

You'll probably hear this one a million times every time you enter some kind of store in Japan.
（１）　いらっしゃいませ。- Please come in!
However, a middle-aged sushi chef will probably use the abbreviated version.
（２）　いらっしゃい！- Please come in!

Some more examples...
（３）　。おくださいませ。- Thank you very much. Please come again.
（４）　、ごなさいませ。- Please take your time and relax.

Examples:

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