Keigo: Polite Japanese

The Japanese honorific register is not a list of forms to memorise. It is a decision about who you are talking to. You can know that 伺う is the humble form of 行く and still aim it at a classmate one year above you. You can know お〜になる and use it about your own boss in front of a customer. The difference is not in the form – it is in who is speaking to whom. That is what Keigo asks about. FOUR SKILLS MEASURED APART Register – who this form is right for. Direction – whose action it is: yours or theirs. Production – building the form from its parts. Overdone keigo – recognizing that the politeness is one step too much. You can pick the humble register flawlessly and consistently humble the wrong person. An app that averages those four numbers into one has no way to show you that. This one shows it. TOO MUCH KEIGO IS A MISTAKE TOO 二重敬語 and バイト敬語 – forms that sound polite and are wrong. They…