Yukigo
Keigo: formal Japanese, explained
Keigo isn't "more polite Japanese": it is a system that encodes, inside the grammar, who stands higher in this particular conversation. You raise the other person or lower yourself, and the action stays the same.
It frightens people because textbooks present it as three lists to memorize. In reality about ten verbs have special forms; everything else follows two patterns, and the phrases you hear in shops are fixed blocks you only need to recognize.
Three families, one question
Teineigo is neutral politeness: the です・ます you already use. Sonkeigo raises your interlocutor and applies to their actions. Kenjōgo lowers you and applies to yours. The question to ask isn't "how formal should I be" but "whose action is this": if it's theirs it goes up, if it's mine it goes down.
The mistake that gets noticed
Using sonkeigo about yourself. Saying 私が召し上がります is like announcing "I shall deign to eat": the elevated form goes to the other person, never to the speaker. It is the one keigo error that makes a native flinch — erring downwards, staying on です・ます, offends almost nobody.
When you actually need it
In shops you receive it, you don't produce it: as a customer, です・ます is enough. You do need it with a boss, in an interview, on the phone with a company and in work email. Among friends, peers and family, keigo sounds cold or sarcastic rather than polite.
Why recognizing beats producing, at first
The keigo aimed at you every day is a hundred times what you will have to say in your first year. Recognizing いらっしゃいませ, かしこまりました and 少々お待ちください tells you what is happening in a shop; producing 拝見いたします can wait, and early on it even sounds odd coming from a learner.
The same verb at four heights
Highlighted are the rows where the honorific doesn't derive from the verb but replaces it with a different word: those are the ones actually worth learning, and mercifully there are few.
| Verb | Polite (ます) | Sonkeigo (raises them) | Kenjōgo (lowers you) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 行くto go | 行きます | いらっしゃる | 参る |
| 来るto come | 来ます | いらっしゃる | 参る |
| いるto be, to stay | います | いらっしゃる | おる |
| 食べるto eat | 食べます | 召し上がる | いただく |
| 言うto say | 言います | おっしゃる | 申す |
| 見るto see | 見ます | ご覧になる | 拝見する |
| するto do | します | なさる | いたす |
| 書くto write | 書きます | お書きになる | お書きする |
| 待つto wait | 待ちます | お待ちになる | お待ちする |
| 使うto use | 使います | お使いになる | お使いする |
Notice that 行く, 来る and いる share one sonkeigo, いらっしゃる: in polite speech the three actions merge, and context tells you which is meant.
The two patterns that cover everything else
For any verb without a special form, politeness is built with two fixed frames. Learning them is worth more than memorizing the table: they apply to hundreds of verbs.
Sonkeigo (raises them)
お + 連用形 + になる
読む → お読みになる
Kenjōgo (lowers you)
お + 連用形 + する
読む → お読みする
The phrases you'll hear before you can parse them
In shops and offices keigo arrives as a single block of sound. Recognizing them beats taking them apart: what they are used for matters more than the grammar inside.
いらっしゃいませ
irasshaimase
Welcome: said to you on entering any shop, no reply expected
少々お待ちください
shōshō omachi kudasai
One moment please: at a counter, on the phone, in a queue
かしこまりました
kashikomarimashita
Certainly, I'll see to it: the reply of someone taking on a request
お世話になっております
osewa ni natte orimasu
Opening formula between colleagues or with regular clients, phone included
恐れ入ります
osoreirimasu
Excuse me / thank you: for troubling someone gracefully
よろしくお願いいたします
yoroshiku onegai itashimasu
Closing for emails and introductions, the formal version of よろしく
Hear it before you have to say it
With Yukigo keigo shows up where it belongs — in listening drills and exam readings — with an AI tutor to ask why this form and not the other. From your first です up to N2. Free and ad-free.
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Frequently asked questions
It appears at N4 in its basic forms and becomes a serious topic at N3, where it enters both the grammar and the listening. At N2 you have to recognize it without slowing down, because office dialogues are full of humble forms.
Far less bad than you fear. Staying on です・ます with someone who warranted sonkeigo just sounds a little flat, and nobody holds it against a foreigner. The one error that registers is raising yourself: the honorific form applied to your own actions.
Only about ten verbs have one, and they are the most frequent: go, come, be, eat, say, see, do. For all the rest there are the お〜になる and お〜する frames, which cover the remainder of the language.
Yes, but with different borders: essentially never among peers, always with superiors. At work it is very much alive, and the written side — email and messages to clients — is if anything stricter than the spoken one.
Teineigo (丁寧語) is one of the three families of keigo, the neutral です・ます one. "Keigo" is the umbrella term that also covers sonkeigo and kenjōgo: when someone says "I don't know keigo", they almost always mean those two.