Japanese Polite Language (敬語)
After you reach a certain level of Japanese proficiency, there are two types of classes that are especially challenging.
One is old Japanese. Usually necessary for those who read old books or do research related to Japanese culture or History. Not my case. And since modern Japanese still gives me a lot of trouble, even though it helps to explain modern Japanese (for example, why there are two characters for "o"? Namely 「お」 and 「を」), I'll pass this one for now.
Another one, and this one is very hard to ignore, is polite Japanese, or keigo (敬語).
Why is this challenging? One point is that in many cases, words and even sentences are altered completely. For example, "soshite" (そして), which means "and / then", becomes "narabi ni" (ならびに); "Ashita" ("tomorrow") becomes "myounichi", even though the kanji is still the same (明日). Even the simple "sou desu ka?" (そうですか), meaning "really?" or "all right", becomes "sayou degozaimasu ka" (さようでございますか).
Another point, although this one is personal, is that from my Brazilian background, it is not so easy to always think of the relative ranking of the person I'm talking to and use the correct level of politeness. I'm used to just mirror the politeness of the person I'm talking to, and to get informal as the person is closer to me. That doesn't work here.
As I mentioned "correct level", it is important to mention there are various forms of polite language in Japanese. Sonkeigo is used to elevate other people (used towards people who are older or "socially superior" in some way); kenjyougo is used to humble oneself (towards someone "superior"); teineigo is the standard polite language (and the one I usually stick to for being the safest and simplest).
So, if a professor sees my report, "sensei wa watashi no repooto wo goran ni naru" (先生は私のレポートをご覧になる); if I see my professor somewhere, "watashi wa sensei wo haiken suru" (私は先生を拝見する); if I see a movie, "watashi wa eiga wo mimasu" (私は映画を見ます). Those were, respectively, the sonkeigo, kenjyougo and teineigo forms of the verb miru (見る), whose meaning is easy to guess from the examples.
There are some other details and variations, like placing 御 ("o" or "go") at the beginning of words to beautify them, but I won't go too deep this time.
The bottom line is that even Japanese people themselves often make mistakes when using polite language beyond the simple teineigo.
A comic book I read recently after reading about it on Muito Japão 2 is 日本人の知らない日本語 (free translation: "Japanese Language Japanese People don't Know"). It is very funny for those who had the chance of studying Japanese in Japan, for they can relate to some situations mentioned in the comics. It also has many curiosities, mostly about Japanese language. And the book also mentions Japanese polite language, how Japanese people often make mistakes on it and some situations with foreign students.
And how much keigo should foreigners know? It depends. This Japan Times article says that foreigners who use too much keigo are seen as show offs. On the other hand, Japanese raised abroad are eventually criticized for their shaky command of keigo. The only problem is since I have Asian looks I may be closer to the second case.
The article also says that "Making mistakes in keigo or using too much keigo and seeming 'ingin burei' (appearing insincere with excessive politeness) leaves a worse impression than not using it." So I guess I'll try to stick to the safe side.
But before I mentioned that keigo is hard to ignore, didn't I? Yes, and it is because even if you don't use it, be sure you will listen to it... a lot.
One is old Japanese. Usually necessary for those who read old books or do research related to Japanese culture or History. Not my case. And since modern Japanese still gives me a lot of trouble, even though it helps to explain modern Japanese (for example, why there are two characters for "o"? Namely 「お」 and 「を」), I'll pass this one for now.
Another one, and this one is very hard to ignore, is polite Japanese, or keigo (敬語).
Why is this challenging? One point is that in many cases, words and even sentences are altered completely. For example, "soshite" (そして), which means "and / then", becomes "narabi ni" (ならびに); "Ashita" ("tomorrow") becomes "myounichi", even though the kanji is still the same (明日). Even the simple "sou desu ka?" (そうですか), meaning "really?" or "all right", becomes "sayou degozaimasu ka" (さようでございますか).
Another point, although this one is personal, is that from my Brazilian background, it is not so easy to always think of the relative ranking of the person I'm talking to and use the correct level of politeness. I'm used to just mirror the politeness of the person I'm talking to, and to get informal as the person is closer to me. That doesn't work here.
As I mentioned "correct level", it is important to mention there are various forms of polite language in Japanese. Sonkeigo is used to elevate other people (used towards people who are older or "socially superior" in some way); kenjyougo is used to humble oneself (towards someone "superior"); teineigo is the standard polite language (and the one I usually stick to for being the safest and simplest).
So, if a professor sees my report, "sensei wa watashi no repooto wo goran ni naru" (先生は私のレポートをご覧になる); if I see my professor somewhere, "watashi wa sensei wo haiken suru" (私は先生を拝見する); if I see a movie, "watashi wa eiga wo mimasu" (私は映画を見ます). Those were, respectively, the sonkeigo, kenjyougo and teineigo forms of the verb miru (見る), whose meaning is easy to guess from the examples.
There are some other details and variations, like placing 御 ("o" or "go") at the beginning of words to beautify them, but I won't go too deep this time.
The bottom line is that even Japanese people themselves often make mistakes when using polite language beyond the simple teineigo.
A comic book I read recently after reading about it on Muito Japão 2 is 日本人の知らない日本語 (free translation: "Japanese Language Japanese People don't Know"). It is very funny for those who had the chance of studying Japanese in Japan, for they can relate to some situations mentioned in the comics. It also has many curiosities, mostly about Japanese language. And the book also mentions Japanese polite language, how Japanese people often make mistakes on it and some situations with foreign students.
And how much keigo should foreigners know? It depends. This Japan Times article says that foreigners who use too much keigo are seen as show offs. On the other hand, Japanese raised abroad are eventually criticized for their shaky command of keigo. The only problem is since I have Asian looks I may be closer to the second case.
The article also says that "Making mistakes in keigo or using too much keigo and seeming 'ingin burei' (appearing insincere with excessive politeness) leaves a worse impression than not using it." So I guess I'll try to stick to the safe side.
But before I mentioned that keigo is hard to ignore, didn't I? Yes, and it is because even if you don't use it, be sure you will listen to it... a lot.
3 comments:
I don't know, in my experience keigo is overrated. The examples you gave in the post, for instance, I have never came across any of then (other than goran kudasai), and I have been to a fair share o banks and stuff.
Maybe because we're stuck in the academia, we are shielded from excessive keigo usage. :-) I don't consider this to be a bad thing. I think/hope japanese society will eventually completely outgrow keigo - at least out of the degree it is still used today.
Some of my examples were really overrated, I've never heard the polite version of そうですか myself.
To some extent, students are shielded from keigo. For example, during job hunting, some mistakes in keigo are forgiven or even considered natural.
Besides, when dealing with banks and such, we listen to a lot of keigo, but are not obliged to reply on the same level. We're there as customers. I think things are different when you are offering a service to a customer.
The excessive keigo probably tends to disappear, even because the Japanese themselves are not sure how to use it. But most of it will remain there longer than we.
Keigo is complicated. I agree that it tends to disappear in a loooong process, but I think we can't measure how long it will take!
I've learned on japanese school that things surely are different when you offer any product/service to a customer and who needs to be use Keigo during the conversation is the attendent/seller. I hope that is not wrong.
As you said, I prefer to use the usual japanese when I'm not sure of what to say in some kinds of conversation. I think it's saffer than try to use a polite japanese that you don't have much sure.
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