Hello. I'm Naoko, an online Japanese teacher and Japanese language researcher. Today I will be talking about Kenjogo, one of the types of honorific language in Japanese.

At a Japanese language school, a teacher asked the international students, ``What did you do yesterday?'' One international student felt that he had to use polite words when speaking to his teacher, so he answered like this.

（1）  Kinoo, Toshokan de 3 satsu hon o okari shimashita. Sorekara, ryoo ni okaeri shite, bangohan o otsukuri shimasita.

　Does this international student's answer use the correct Japanese honorific language? Unfortunately, this is not the correct honorific expression. Why is it not correct?

This international student had studied honorific expressions such as “Otetsudai shimasu(I'll help you)” and “Ocha o oire shimasu(I'll make you some tea),” so he thought he had to use this honorific expressions when talking to his teacher.

However, "O-shimasu" is an expression that shows respect to the person doing the act, so if you borrowed a book from your teacher, it would be the correct honorific expression, but in a situation where you simply tell your teacher that you borrowed a book from the library, It's not a correct honorific.

　
　Let me explain in a little more detail.
　When you are saying “I'm going to do something for a customer or a superior,” you can use “O-Shimasu” to express something to the customer or superior. It is an expression of respect. For example, as shown in this picture, when you ask a customer, “Ocha o oire shimashoo ka?(Shall I make some tea for you?)”, it means that you are making tea for the customer. In other words, the person you are acting on is the customer. The same goes for calling a taxi. “Takushii o oyobi shimashoo ka?(I'll call you a taxi)” is used when you want to show respect to the person you are doing something to. If you called a taxi for yourself, you wouldn't say, “Takushii o oyobi shimasita(I called a taxi).” All you have to do is say this. “Takushii o yobimasita.”

By the way, there is another form of “Go-shimasu” other than “O-shimasu”. For example, “Go annai shimasu(I'll show you around),” or “Kaigi de go setsumei shimasu(I'll explain it to you at the meeting).” If you're not sure when to use "o" and when to use "go," please remember the general rule that when a word has two kanji, it becomes "go." In other words, in the words of Chinese origin, it becomes "go", and in the words of Japanese origin, it becomes "o". However, there are exceptions, so you will need to memorize them in the end, but if there are nouns with two kanji characters, there is a high possibility that they will be "go", so I think it would be a good idea to focus on memorizing the exceptional ones that are "o". 

Japanese honorifics are expressions that show respect to the recipient of an action, but other languages do not have these types of honorifics. For example, there are polite expressions in English, but in English, expressions always change depending on how polite they are to the listener. There are few languages like Japanese where honorific expressions are used differently depending on the subject and object of the sentence.

The kind of mistakes I talked about at the beginning are more likely to be made by people whose language only uses interpersonal honorifics. If you always think about showing respect to your listeners, you won't be able to use Japanese honorifics correctly. In Japanese, the person who appears in a sentence is important, such as "～ga", "～ni" and "～wo".

Today, I talked about Japanese honorifics. When you use Japanese honorifics, consider whether there is someone who will accept your actions.