Learning Keigo through “Chibi Marukochan”

So, in the last month or so, I have been focusing more on reading Japanese as a means of building vocabulary, building correct grammar, and learning words in contexts, instead of rote memorization. As I work close to a Japanese import store, this makes life easier. Recently, we visited there with the family and I picked up this little book:

This is a manga focused on younger audiences about how to use keigo (敬語) or polite Japanese, featuring a famous cartoon character, Chibi Marukochan (little kid Maruko). My wife remembers watching her cartoons as a little girl, so I was a little embarrased to buy it at first, but I am glad I did as the book has taught me quite a bit about keigo, in native Japanese, which I want to practice reading anyway for the JLPT among other things. Also, the Wikipedia article on keigo is well-written and detailed, but I found that reading about keigo in the context of a children’s comic helped me to break it down and see real-life examples of how it is used, by native speakers, and this book does well to hammer the same points over and over again.

So here’s a quick introduction to keigo, as taught in this manga (filtered through me). This is not an exhaustive overview, just a sample. Also, in the charts below, hiragana only is provided, no romaji. Refer to Tae Kim’s excellent explanation here if your weak on hiragana.

Three types of Keigo

Keigo can be divided into three types:

1. Sonkeigo (尊敬語) – This is respectful language you use toward others to elevate their status, such as your boss, the elderly and someone else’s family and relatives. You do not use sonkeigo when you talk about your family, friends or company to others, as it sounds extremely arrogant.
2. Kenjōgo (謙譲語) – This is humble language you use to lower yourself and your intimate circle of friends, family and company (called miuchi 身内 collectively) when talking to others. This often works in tandem with sonkeigo.
3. Teineigo (丁寧語) – This is more general formal and polite language. Students of Japanese language usually learn this first, and sadly are never taught the other two, as Sonkeigo and Kenjōgo don’t really exist in English. It’s a good start, but without learning the other two, one’s Japanese lacks the “native” sound in my opinion. We will not cover that here as it’s generally well-known among Japanese language students.

So, as I took 2 years of college Japanese, I can say form experience that people usually learn Teineigo, and while Sonkeigo and Kenjōgo usually are left as just a footnote, or ignored altogether. Interestingly, the manga actually focuses on these two first, while leaving Teineigo toward the end, which shows a difference in cultural priorities. While Sonkeigo and Kenjōgo are only a small part of Japanese, learning these will make a noticeable difference in interacting with Japanese native speakers, not just in business, but even friends (and their families) and so on. Do not underestimate their importance!

Sonkeigo

Respectful language, or sonkeigo is used to show respect and elevate others (compared to yourself). In English, we have some limited form of respectful language when talking to our bosses, or to the elderly, but in Japanese and other asian-languages, the respectful language is more definitive. The simplest way to express respect in Japanese, according to the manga, is to change a verb to it’s passive/potential form (e.g. 飲む becomes 飲まれます), but this is like “sonkeigo-lite” in that it shows some respect but not that much.

In most cases for regular sonkeigo, a verb can become a respectful verb with only minor changes, but it’s important that for some very common verbs, there exist entirely different verbs exclusively used when showing respect:

Other verbs can usually be made respectful by changing the verb from the “masu-form” to おmasu-stemになる. Examples like 読む become お読みになる or 座る becomes お座りになる. If giving a polite command, you can also do おmasu-stemください as in お入りください (please come/go in) from 入る.

Again, to emphasize, DO NOT EVER use sonkeigo when you talk about people close to you to others. If you are talking to your grandfather, you would use sonkeigo, but if you’re talking about your grandfather to someone else, even if he’s an elder, then you use humble speech. Same goes with your boss, even if he is the CEO of that company.

Lastly, when talking about people, the word hito gets replaced with the more honorific kata (方), when asking about someone else’s manager, you might say tantō no kata (担当の方).¹

Humble Speech

Humble speech or kenjōgo, as it implies, lowers yourself when talking with others. Even in basic Japanese, it’s required that when you describe your mother to others, you use humble words like 母 (haha), and when talking about someone else’s mother, you refer to them more respectfully as お母さん (okāsan). When talking about your inner-circle, or miuchi (身内), including your family, your friends, and even your company you should be humble and lower the status somewhat. Otherwise, it will sound arrogant if you do it wrong.

This also applies to verbs used. As with sonkeigo, some common words have their own vocabulary, while others just need to be conjugated:

For other verbs, you can often just take the “masu-stem”, add お in the front, and します (or even more humble いたします) at the end. For example, if you’re telling your teacher you are reading his book, you might say お読みします, or お読みいたします instead plain old 読みます。

Also, as stated earlier, when talking about people in yoru circle, you should use more humble forms of speech. If talking about someone’s daughter you call them ojōsan (お嬢さん), but your own daughter would musume (娘). Also, instead of using hito to describe a person, use mono (者), even if it were your manager or boss. A good example is tantō no mono or “person in charge, manager” (担当の者).¹

Conclusion

Keigo in general represents the two extremes between humility and respect, so using it with friends or even acquaintances you know well probably is overkill, or even could sound sarcastic. So, it takes some time to get the right balance in most situations between being polite/humble and not overdoing it, but generally it’s a safe bet that being respectful to your superiors (including your Japanese-language teacher or boss), or being humble when talking about them to others will impress the listener and show you are culturally sensitive.

I found this little manga to be pretty useful for the lessons above, but also for the badly needed reading practice and vocabulary too.

P.S. The same manga can be found on Amazon JP, as well as online at Kinokuniya bookstore. If you are JLPT certified at the N4-level (with a comfortable passing score) or N3, you can read this book and just look up the words you don’t know.

¹ Credit for this example goes to JPod101 and their Upper Immediate series, lesson 1, which I briefly looked at and realized was way too advanced for me yet. :-p