A clear introduction to keigo, politeness, and social meaning in Japanese.

Japanese Honorifics Foreword | How to Think About Keigo

~5 min read

I’ve been teaching Japanese honorifics, without a doubt one of the most difficult parts of the language, for a number of years now. Hearing the above words from a number of people, I have decided to put into the fewest and simplest words my views on the topic. The final judgement on whether I am successful: I leave up to you.

Unlike most guides, this complete keigo guide covers not just honorific language, but also culture and the social meanings of words in Japanese. That gives learners a clearer sense of how Japanese honorifics actually work in real-life situations.

That means lessons on honorifics and culture, like:

○ Hierarchy in Common Relationships

○ Tone and Formality in Japanese

It also means lessons focused on honorific language itself, like:

○ Japanese Respectful Language

○ Japanese Humble Language

And more besides.

If you want the full lesson sequence, start with the full Japanese honorifics guide.

“Once you understand how Japanese words carry social meanings, in the words of others, you’ll constantly search for meaning; in your own, you’ll search for yourself.”—Kotobakun

Essential vs Beyond-Essential Japanese

One useful way to approach this topic is to separate what learners need first from what can wait until later.

○ Essential Japanese – what you must know to keep communication smooth; and

○ Beyond-essential Japanese – what’s nice to have, but not urgent at the beginning

You can think of it like needs vs wants in communication.

Essential Japanese

This is the stuff you can’t ignore if you want smooth communication:

○ enough language to avoid communication breakdowns

○ enough awareness to avoid accidentally causing offense

○ enough structure so you can learn from real conversations

We start here, because it’s through smooth communication that we begin to pick up:

○ language norms;

○ cultural expectations; and

○ speech patterns

This will be our starting point. For many learners, polite Japanese is the real starting point before moving deeper into keigo.

Beyond the Basics

Once the basics are stable, this is where learners can start exploring nuance, tone, emotional shading, and more deliberate choices in wording.

○ Using subtle shifts in wording to add layers of nuance.

○ Intentionally using language to express a variety of emotions including “negative” emotions such as anger

○ Consciously deviate from language and cultural norms, expectations, and patterns

This will be our nice-to-haves later. We also move into humble language in Japanese, where word choice reflects your relationship to the listener and the person you are talking about.

Keep these two steps in mind:

1. Essentials first,
2. Beyond-essentials second

Why Honorifics Are More Than Grammar

For the past three years, I’ve been working for a local Japanese government. From this front-row seat, I’ve seen just how important the cultural side of communication is in Japanese.

Time and time again, I watched foreigners run into setbacks not because their Japanese wasn’t good enough, but because their cultural understanding wasn’t keeping up.

This is fundamental. Grammar mistakes and cultural mistakes are treated differently. When we make mistakes with grammar, or vocabulary it mainly affects how other people see our language ability. But when we make cultural mistakes, it affects how people see us as people.

Why Keigo Feels Difficult

It’s not only foreigners, many Japanese feel angst about honorifics, just take a look at the abundance of how-to honorific guidebooks and training courses. Despite this, most Japanese would choose to keep the honorific system. Why? Because honorifics aren’t just words, they are culture. They act as the social lubricant which keeps society running, as much as “please” or “thank you” does in English.

Native speaker’s anxieties reflect the awareness of the importance of honorifics in making or breaking an interaction. Being raised Japanese, much of the system is learned in childhood through experience. The part that requires study, are the rare words and phrases that are only found in professional contexts.

This explains why few guides made for foreigners really get to the heart of this issue: the core issue is culture and not language.

Here are two examples to make my point:

○ In English, you call your father “Dad” and not by his first name

○ In English, to be polite you make requests with “I would like…” and not “I want…”

As a native, the cultural aspect is obvious and needs NO explanation.

What Honorifics Can Express

Japanese honorifics are the words and patterns Japanese uses to express politeness, respect, distance, and social meaning. The term keigo is often used as a broad label for this area of the language, but learners quickly discover that it overlaps with culture, relationships, and context as much as it does with grammar.

No definition of honorifics comes even remotely close to capturing all its roles in Japanese, so why bother? Instead, I can tell you that the following are but a few of things expressed in Japanese using honorifics:

Politeness. Formality. Respect. Familiarity. Closeness. Identity. Emotions. Humour.

To get a sense of just how important it really is, imagine if I removed your ability to express any of the things in this list in your native language.

Japanese Pronouns and Social Meaning: Introducing the Caterpillar

What caterpillar? Yes, that Caterpillar.

~The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. “Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.~

Since Alice in Wonderland first arrived in Japan, this one simple sentence has been translated into Japanese dozens of different ways. The variety of translations comes from the Japanese language’s superpower: its ability to encode social meanings directly into words.

In Japanese, the Caterpillar’s choice of “you”:

○ hints at his age,

○ hints at his gender,

○ reflects his feelings towards Alice,

○ and tells us something about the relationship between them.

The word “you” is an example of a pronoun. Once a pronoun is chosen, it immediately sends all these nuances straight into the mind of the reader or listener. If this idea is new to you, see our guide to Japanese words for “you” and how they change tone, distance, and attitude.

All of these mean something like “Who are you?”, but each paints a very different picture of the Caterpillar and Alice.

In a language like Japanese, where words have complex social lives, we must learn to understand those meanings – and, just as importantly, learn to share them with the people we meet. Pronouns like “you” are just one part of the huge, exhilarating set of words we can use to colour our lives and relationships in Japanese.

In English, the speaker is forced to constantly frame reality in terms of tense and number. For example, “two caterpillars ate the leaf”. It is essential that I specify the action (“ate”) as past, present, future, etc., and the actor (the caterpillar) as singular or plural. In Japanese, the speaker is constantly framing reality in terms of their relationships with others. For a native, choosing a form that encodes these relationships feels as natural as using the pronoun “she” for Alice in English.