I've just started studying keigo, and it's hard. But it seems like the kind of thing that could be pretty easily addressed with the right set of sentences / flashcards. Something like: Q = Social situation + simple phrase in english, A = how to say the phrase in Japanese. Or perhaps Q = phrase, A = meaning + social situation. I like that better, actually.

Has anybody done something like this before? Can anybody recommend a good source for such sentences?

It seems to me that keigo is just a polite/business way of saying things in Japanese, no? So why are you putting English into the picture at all?

If you're using English because you don't know Japanese well enough yet, I'd suggest you learn Japanese well enough first.

I think I'm there with my Japanese, but I'd like to also learn the different (wierd) verbs (おる、いらっしゃる、いただく, etc) in the right context and know what they mean. So really what I'm looking for is a good keigo sentence set.

mullr Wrote:I think I'm there with my Japanese, but I'd like to also learn the different (wierd) verbs (おる、いらっしゃる、いただく, etc) in the right context and know what they mean. So really what I'm looking for is a good keigo sentence set.

Just be very careful of learning from tv etc. Since most Japanese people are not functionally fluent in Keigo unless they've had specific training, there is a good deal of "wrong" keigo out there. It is especially common in the lower end of the service industry (fastfood, non-high class restaurants & stores, etc).

I haven't read this book yet, but I'd definitely recommend it

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%AB%E3%81%...73&sr=11-1

Here's why:

One of my good friends (Japanese) got me a Christmas present. She knew I wanted to learn keigo so I could go for a business interview in July. So she asked her mom, who is a teacher of keigo, what book I should use to learn it. This is the one that was recommended.

Be warned, however, that there is pretty much no English in this book. I'm quite sure it was meant to teach Japanese people keigo, not for foreigners. However, since I'd agree with wccrawford here and say not to try to learn keigo until you have a good basis in Japanese, the fact that there is no English shouldn't really matter.

It has a CD, which I've loaded onto my iPod for some quick listening, and the voices are pretty good. The generic male and female voices, but it isn't slowed down or anything like that, and the situations are pretty important for virtually all keigo-use situations (teacher/business/etc).

So, check it out if you want. Otherwise, there are tons of resources online that do segments on keigo. Generally it is best to learn the different verbs first and go from there, as the usage will essentially be the same. Good luck!

mullr Wrote:I've just started studying keigo, and it's hard. But it seems like the kind of thing that could be pretty easily addressed with the right set of sentences / flashcards. Something like: Q = Social situation + simple phrase in english, A = how to say the phrase in Japanese. Or perhaps Q = phrase, A = meaning + social situation. I like that better, actually.

Has anybody done something like this before? Can anybody recommend a good source for such sentences?

I'm currently on it actually . I've been looking through a large array of keigo books and eventually I bought two of them
Each of them have distinct values
the first one is 日本語実用ぶビジネス it's edited by alc
As it is designed for company work situation it doesn't deal exclusively with keigo but far from being a shortcoming I think it's a nice change from all those uber-theoric books about keigo . I mean everything in language should be though in practical value , function. And the salaryman themselves can and do drop keigo and even resort to slang according to the situation . So for each situation it provides a whole bunch of sentences (up to nine) of various length, complexity and level (including keigo of course)and with sometimes remarks (humble , polite , colloquial , honor , informal , slang , formal ,woman , someone of your group , someone of your out group , etc...) to give you a better insight in their actual use .It's pretty well known and I kind of remember having read that it is used by a language school for the manager of a Toyota-like big japanese company.
There is a cd included . On a side note there is a lot of roleplay but I'm more interested by tapping into this tank of sentences.
It's part english , part japenese.

the secund one is 敬語話し方　it belongs to the 好感度１２０％UP collection
here again the book is divided into situations . And what's really interesting is that you have 2 sentences clearly identified for each situation , one formal in keigo , one casual (which doesn't mean disrespectful) .
the whole book is in japanese

actually I was wondering if someone else was interested in keigo for typing up a book in a anki file .... I ve eaten up both kanji odyssey book , a 2kyuu grammar book through anki and now I'd like to go for keigo as it's very likely I'll be working for a japanese company same time next year.

You guys got me interested in the subject so I looked a little around...
Amazon.co.jp is a great place for book recommendations. The most おすすめ'd books are:

- The one ghinzdra mentioned: 敬語と話し方

- One called 気持ちが伝わる敬語の使い方, which is based on an interesting site, ことばのレシピ which seems very much worth looking at.

- Not specifically centered on keigo but with a whopping 58 five-stars out of 70 votes: 言葉と声の磨き方. It's about communication skills in Japanese (speaking). It has a CD with voice examples as far as I can tell. Wouldn't it be great for a learner, too?

I haven't read them, but I'm quite tempted now...
(I've linked to amazon for the reviews, but these are all available elsewhere, like bk1)

Keigo's not really just a matter of looking at a basic sentence and making it fluffy because of all the targets and objects of politeness involved, so I doubt the basic English sentence method you suggest would work.

What might work is your suggestion of a situation, but you would need to state who you are elevating (the person you're talking to? a third person? both?) and whether you also want to humble yourself.

Situation: you are talking to your boss and ask if he knows Tanaka sensei. You want to elevate your boss only (you and Tanaka sensei remain neutral).
Keigo:　田中先生をご存知ですか？

Situation: you are talking to your boss and tell him that you know Tanaka sensei. You want to elevate Tanaka sensei only (you and your boss remain neutral).
Keigo:　田中先生を存じ上げています。

Situation: you are talking to your boss and you tell him that you know Tanaka sensei. You want to elevate both your boss and Tanaka sensei (you remain neutral).
Keigo:　田中先生を存じ上げております。

Situation: you are talking to your boss and you tell him that you know Tanaka sensei. You want to elevate your boss and humble yourself (Tanaka sensei remains neutral).
Keigo: 田中先生を存じています。

I would say keigo is something you could study after your level is high enough that you can hold a ten minute professional conversation. If you are not at that level, you could learn the basics that 90% of Japanese understand which could be printed on one A4 sheet of paper.

If you want to hear a lot of keigo watch samurai dramas where a Shogun or Daimyo is the main character.

Most Japanese only use a few keigo words if at all. Again, if you are not at the level where you can sit down in a professional meeting and discuss a subject for ten minutes, I'd stick to です、ます and work on other things that will get you to that level.

This might help:

Here are two emails I got when I was searching for a place to get married in Japan. It's loaded with keigo and thought I would share:

Number 1
トムさん

お世話になります。
ご連絡いただきましてありがとうございます。
昨日までお休みいただいておりましてご連絡遅くなり
大変申し訳ございませんでした。

来週の日曜ですが　18日でよろしいでしょうか。
お時間は　12時で大丈夫です。

オプションにつきましてはアイテムリストでご確認しながら
お見積りを改めて作成していきたいと思います。

衣裳ですが、タキシードの大きさも　日本人体系で
185ｃｍの身長・ウエスト100ｃｍ　サイズのものはいつでもございます。
イタリアのブランドのもので　190ｃｍ　サイズもございますし、
身長とウエストサイズが分かりましたらご用意が出来ますのでご安心下さい。

トムさんとまたお会い出来てすごく嬉しかったです。
お急ぎだった事もお察し出来ずに申し訳ございませんでした。
またお話し沢山お聞かせ下さいね。

Number 2
トムさん

こんばんは。
お世話になります。
今日は雨がシトシト降っていて肌寒いですね。

先日はご来店頂きましてありがとうございます。

その後いかがでしょうか。
いろいろとお話しをされている事と思いますが、
また何かございましたらご遠慮なくおっしゃって
下さいね。

本日、お二人と同じお日にちをお考えだとの
お問い合わせも入りまして、お伝えしないと
思いメールさせて頂きました。

来週のご来店でしたので大丈夫だと思いますが
やはり私はお二人に　8/8　で行って頂きたいな
と思います。
また私で出来る事がございましたら、精一杯
お手伝いさせて頂きますので、宜しくお願い致します。

それではまた。

mullr Wrote:I've just started studying keigo, and it's hard. But it seems like the kind of thing that could be pretty easily addressed with the right set of sentences / flashcards. Something like: Q = Social situation + simple phrase in english, A = how to say the phrase in Japanese. Or perhaps Q = phrase, A = meaning + social situation. I like that better, actually.

In terms of making cards, I'd go for something like this:

Q: 会社員→顧客
「田中です。宜しくお願いします。」
A:「田中と申します。宜しくお願い致します。」

Q:会社員→顧客
「質問があったら連絡ください」
A:「不明な点がございましたら、ご連絡ください。」

EDIT:Keeping to the minimum information principle in flash card creation, you may want to start out make flash cards just testing whether you can produce the sonkeigo or kenjogo for a particular verb.

e.g.
Q:行く（尊敬語）
A:いらっしゃる

Ryuujin27 Wrote:I haven't read this book yet, but I'd definitely recommend it

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%AB%E3%81%...73&sr=11-1

Here's why:

One of my good friends (Japanese) got me a Christmas present. She knew I wanted to learn keigo so I could go for a business interview in July. So she asked her mom, who is a teacher of keigo, what book I should use to learn it. This is the one that was recommended.

Be warned, however, that there is pretty much no English in this book. I'm quite sure it was meant to teach Japanese people keigo, not for foreigners. However, since I'd agree with wccrawford here and say not to try to learn keigo until you have a good basis in Japanese, the fact that there is no English shouldn't really matter.

It has a CD, which I've loaded onto my iPod for some quick listening, and the voices are pretty good. The generic male and female voices, but it isn't slowed down or anything like that, and the situations are pretty important for virtually all keigo-use situations (teacher/business/etc).

So, check it out if you want. Otherwise, there are tons of resources online that do segments on keigo. Generally it is best to learn the different verbs first and go from there, as the usage will essentially be the same. Good luck!

In addition, there's also a book from the same series for "Kaiwa", which was just released in 2008.

You can find both books at Kinokuniya here:

にほんご敬語トレ－ニング

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cg...FF&AREA=02


にほんご会話トレ－ニング

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cg...FF&AREA=02

So is there anyone interested into typing up a keigo book ?
I'm going to do 好感度120%UPの敬語と話し方 (単行本) which has the best average rating out there and is thoroughly well designed and compact book.
To have a better insight on how the book is made
there are 7 parts
- basic keigo
- keigo for company insiders
- keigo for business (other companies , clients , ...)
- keigo for phone talk
- keigo for letters/mail
- keigo for important cerenomies
- keigo for reception
each of them is divided into sub sections ... Overall there are 77 sub sections
each of those sub sections have between 2 and 3 answers type and each of those answers have a very polite form and casual form.
So 77*2,5*2 = 385 sentences .... a joke compared to KO2001's 3000 sentences....but of tremendous help as keigo is something very formal and codified : by exception learning by heart sentences can be a good idea as long as you have a good knowledge of japanese situations. That's why while the left page is only about sentences on the right page the author make comments about the very specific situation the section deals with . It's even easier this way to pick up sentences.

So through Anki I'll make FACTS (for those who don't know anki you need to take a look into anki terminology ) on the following model
- 1 situation :
we can kill two birds with one stone by merging the situation field and the source field for instance about introducing yourself in your new company
the name of the section 初出社 :
(好感度120%UPの敬語と話し方 chapter 1 - section 4 )
-2 casual answer : 田中です。新米なのでよろしく。
-3 reading of the casual anwer (because this one is shorter and simpler than the formal one : so we can type it really fast .)
- 4 formal answer : 田中太郎です。何かと未熟でお手数をおかけすると思いますがどうぞうよろしくお願いいたします。
(ther reading of this one will be take care of by the automatic reading of anki)


from this fact I make at least two CARDS :
one is "formal answer" : for this one I put the casual answer (and maybe ) as a question and the formal answer as an anwer .
the other one is "casual answer" : for this one I put the formal answer as a question and the formal answer as a question .
The whole point is about being able to have ready for use sentence and being able to assess the level of formality required .

Furthermore thanks to anki conception and through this format of "facts" can also do it the AJATT way in a blink of an eye : just read the sentences with one of the sentences and the answer as the reading. Even if i think there is a value in this case in learning it brute force and by heart it still gives room for those willing to use it in a different way . Actually I'll think I'll do it both way.

As i said previously I intend to type it up anyway and I'll share it with whoever can prove his ownership of the book . Obviously it would be quicker if other people are willing to give a hand ...not to mention nicer The very reason why KO2001 was a success. I'll put a sample of the format through a google doc within 9 hours.

So who's in ?

I have some extremely minimal flashcards for keigo, simply regular japanese -> keigo conversions, for example
Q: 見る
　　尊敬語？
A: ご覧になる
　　（ごらんになる）
of course there are some simple phrases as well as single words, but it seems to work pretty well for basic keigo. And of course, there are some cases where the correspondence isn't 1:1 so you'll have to use a short unambiguous phrase in those situations. I have a set for each of sonkeigo (above), kenjougo & teineigo. I'm not sure there's much benefit to including information about the situation in the question; I feel like the recognition of which to use should be separate.
Of course, I don't know anything beyond very basic keigo so I might be completely misguided here.

well that's what I was talking about when I mentionned "uber theoric" keigo.....
because for instance japanese don't use necessarily でございます　instead of です even when on theoric ground they should . Why ? because .
because language is about practice and function . That's the whole point of learning into context and learning the target language in the language . I've read a bunch of practical keigo book . None of them include a correspondance table son-ken-teinei . All of them focus on a set of "safe sentences" . And most of the time when I talk with other gaijin working in japanese company they warn me about this trap of the theoric keigo. You just learn it in context .

musigny Wrote:Most Japanese only use a few keigo words if at all.

Umm, what has led you to believe this? I'm looking at a very short email sent to my boss today to which I was CC'd into and keigo is used 12 times in it. Oh, it is also used incorrectly in many parts too - the sender, a highly intelligent person, wrote 参加いただく instead of ご参加いただく or 参加していただく, and also mistakenly used おります for someone higher than him instead of いらっしゃる, and mistakenly tried to make なさる more polite by changing it to なされる which you can't do unless you're using it in the passive form.

Ok I'm done with the "sample".
As a matter of fact I realized it was so easy that instead of putting a couple of sentences I put the whole chapter online .
This way it's easier to get what I intend to do conditionned you know anki.


http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p...InZAFX5nMQ
with a couple of people it could be done within 3-4 days max.

One more thing .
As I said before : it's a japanese keigo book for japanese .
So don't expect some english translation or a presentation of the basics of keigo. You're supposed to know that : it's only about "safe expression". It won't hurt to read the comments (on the right page of the book) though.

bucko Wrote:What might work is your suggestion of a situation, but you would need to state who you are elevating (the person you're talking to? a third person? both?) and whether you also want to humble yourself.

My post isn't useful, but I must comment saying that this is very interesting.

bucko Wrote:Oh, it is also used incorrectly in many parts too - the sender, a highly intelligent person, wrote 参加いただく instead of ご参加いただく or 参加していただく, and also mistakenly used おります for someone higher than him instead of いらっしゃる, and mistakenly tried to make なさる more polite by changing it to なされる which you can't do unless you're using it in the passive form.

I would confirm with a native speaker before you criticise a native's use of keigo. What are you using as a reference to make those criticisms?

For example, I didn't know that you have to put ご in front of 参加いただく. I'd also like to see the full sentence where おります was used instead of いらっしゃる since this is a mistake often attributed to foreigners rather than natives. (perhaps you identified the subject of the sentence incorrectly)

nac_est Wrote:- Not specifically centered on keigo but with a whopping 58 five-stars out of 70 votes: 言葉と声の磨き方. It's about communication skills in Japanese (speaking). It has a CD with voice examples as far as I can tell. Wouldn't it be great for a learner, too?

I actually own that one. There isn't anything in it about how to use keigo, or any aspect of language really. I think the 言葉 here is mainly how you say the words. It's mostly concerned with fixing voice problems (too quiet, too weak, annoying, etc.). The CD is pretty much just voice exercises as well (so it has the guy going 「アッ　アッ　アッ　アッ、ターターターター」). That said, it is a voice training book for Japanese people, so I think it can probably teach a few things about actually speaking Japanese better.

wrightak Wrote:I would confirm with a native speaker before you criticise a native's use of keigo. What are you using as a reference to make those criticisms?

They aren't my criticisms. I printed out the email to have my Japanese teacher explain why keigo was used this way and he told me that it was wrong. He also explained why it was wrong and how the mistakes made were common misunderstandings of keigo. So basically, if a native speaker uses keigo don't trust that they are using it correctly.

tokyostyle Wrote:I think four keigo words counts as "few" personally. Most keigo I've seen in e-mail is limited to set phrases, 頂く, ございる, and lots of passive form. Your post only proves musigny's point.

Where did you get the figure "four" from? I said it was used 12 times, and that's in one short email of no more than 10 lines. You are write though, most keigo used in emails is limited to itadaku, o~i-suru, o~i-ni-naru, go/o, gozaimasu. In fact, there's not much more to keigo than this. The hard part is working out which of the different variations are appropriate for the situation (formal 丁寧語, courteous　丁重語, humble　謙譲語, respectful　尊敬語, word beautification 美化語)

tokyostyle Wrote:In my experience "asking a Japanese teacher" has as much weight as a random internet forum post. Most male salarymen have taken more 国語 than a JSL teacher.

I think that's taking things a bit far. If bucko was given this information by a Japanese native then that's fair enough.

But I would like to see the email in question.

tokyostyle Wrote:Most male salarymen have taken more 国語 than a JSL teacher.

Then who teaches the salaraymen keigo? Japanese teachers (that is, REAL ones) obviously major in 国語, they don't just get a job because they happen to be natives. There's no way some random salaryman (who in all probability learned his keigo from some incorrect manual at his company) is better than a properly educated real japanese teacher.