Learn how respectful verbs work in Japanese, including replacing, adding, and (ra)reru forms.

Japanese Respectful Verbs: An Introduction

~6 min read

Japanese really likes verbs.

Like, really likes verbs.

Probably as much as the German language loves nouns, or the English language loves being inconsistent.

And if you’re learning respectful language, verbs are the best place to start — because once you can understand how they work, all other respectful and humble language falls into place.

Our Plan of Attack

The first step in decoding respectful language is being able to recognise the many verb forms you’ll run into.

The good news: you don’t have to learn them all by brute force memorisation.

A lot of forms will make sense with a little exposure and repetition.

Pattern-first strategy

Instead of memorising every respectful verb you see, learn how different parts of speech (verbs, nouns, etc.) get turned into honorific language.

Then, when you meet an unfamiliar honorific, you can still:

(1) identify it as an honorific, and

(2) make an educated guess about what it’s doing.

That’s the whole point: recognising that we’re dealing with an honorific, even when we don’t know the specific form, will free up much needed brain power and storage for better things — like more 漢字かんじ.

What Makes a Verb Respectful?

Respectful verbs are special because they carry two layers of meaning:

○ Core meaning: the action / state the verb describes

○ Expressive meaning: the respect shown toward the person whose action / state is being described

If you’ve studied Core Meaning and Expressive Meaning already, this is that same “two layers” idea — only now applied to respectful verbs.

Expressive Meaning: Raising the Referent

Japanese honorifics are fundamentally about distance, and respectful verbs create vertical distance.

That means the expressive layer creates a sense of “upward” distance between:

○ the speaker, and

○ the person the form refers to (the referent)

Creating vertical distance signals a difference in social status and shows respect toward the elevated person.

Quick reminder: A respectful verb elevates the person doing the action (or being in the state).

Let’s use いらっしゃる (“to come”) as an example.

2nd person (the addressee / person being talked to)

3rd person (the referent / person being talked about who isn’t present)

In both cases, the person doing the “coming” is elevated.

The Three Respectful Verb Types

There are three main respectful verb forms:

1. Replacing

2. Adding

3. (ra)reru

You’ll meet all three. They’re doing the same overall job (showing respect toward the person being referred to), but each is built a little differently.

Replacing Form

This is what you saw earlier with いらっしゃる.

You take the plain verb:

○ 来るくる (“to come”) ( P^-1 )

…and swap it for a completely different respectful verb:

○ いらっしゃる ( P⁺¹ )

Notice something interesting: the verb 来るくる is nowhere to be seen!

That’s why this is the replacing form: it replaces the entire plain verb with a new respectful verb.

How to master the replacing form

To master replacing forms, you need to:

• memorise the replacing respectful verbs (e.g. いらっしゃる), and
• know which plain verb they replace (e.g. 来るくる)

Frequency:

Replacing forms aren’t the most common respectful verbs, but they’re the most powerful.

A handful of these will cover most situations (you estimate about 90%).

Adding Form

We haven’t mentioned this form yet, but you’ve definitely met this before (possibly without realising).

It’s called the adding form because you add pieces to the plain verb to make it respectful.

You take the plain verb:

○ 帰るかえる (“to return”) ( P^-1 )

…and add things to it:

○ お帰りかえりになる ( P⁺¹ )

Notice something interesting: the plain verb 帰る is still visible but just squished in an honorific sandwich!

How to master the adding form

Learn the process for converting plain verbs into a respectful adding-form verb.

Frequency:

The adding form is very popular.

Why? Because many plain verbs don’t have a special replacing verb. When that happens, the adding form comes to the rescue!

(ra)reru Form

The (ra)reru form is the third respectful verb type. It gets its name from the (ra)reru attached to the verb (yes, Captain Obvious strikes again).

You take the plain verb:

○ 来るくる (“to come”) ( P^-1 )

…and attach (ra)reru:

○ 来られるこられる ( P⁺¹ )

Just like the adding form, you can still see the plain verb in this respectful form — this time with an honorific tail. That’s because both the adding form and the (ra)reru form are grammatical constructions.

In contrast, the replacing form is more of a lexical approach. It relies on special “new” verbs (new items in your vocabulary), not a grammatical structure.

How to master the (ra)reru form

Learn the process for converting plain verbs into a respectful (ra)reru verb.

Frequency:

The (ra)reru form is gaining popularity!

Unlike the other two, it can make almost any verb respectful — yay!

But there’s a trade-off: when something is very easy to produce, it feels cheap — boo!

Key idea:

Learning (ra)reru is essential, but some textbooks — and conservative (read older) speakers — may treat it as incorrect or as lacking respect.

Why “(ra)” is in brackets

If you’re curious why the (ra) is in brackets and can’t wait for that lesson…

The ら appears with some verb types but not others.

For example:

○ 聞く (“to listen”) → 聞かれる

○ 食べる (“to eat”) → 食べられる

So sometimes you’ll see 〜れる, and sometimes 〜られる, depending on the verb type.