#teineigo

[nihongonoto]

plain, polite, humble, honorific expressions

these charts are gonna be useful someday:

[rollingscone]

So we were practicing various speech levels in my Japanese 301 class and my professor pulled up this fantastic rakugo performance after we did some conversation readings.

The absolute offense on his face at the end really makes it 😂

[webbinghaus]

Teineigo 丁寧語 and social status in the Japanese language

Hello everyone! I have slowly been leaking followers these past couple of weeks which I can only put down to the fact that I just have simply not been putting any content out lately. I was planning on the kanji 漢字 of the day series being a way to keep active on here even when I had nothing to write about, but no one seemed too impressed with that idea, so I'm abandoning it for now.

Now may not even be the best time to be doing this since I have some serious wrist strain right now making it difficult to type. And, if you must know, it is not from オナニする but from playing the guitar.

So anyway, onto the point that I'm trying to make. The other night I was calling with a Japanese person that I had not met before on the LINE service, something akin to Skype which is very popular I am told among East Asian countries. Of course, as you do when meeting a Japanese person for the first time you address them in polite form, or teineigo 丁寧語. Unfortunately, however, I am most accustomed to talking in plain form with my girlfriend and my friends, so my teineigo 丁寧語 is a bit rusty. 

Embarrassingly, due to my extremely poor teineigo 丁寧語 I am afraid I left an incredibly bad impression on the person, appearing to be a beginner learner, which I am most assuredly not. I asked this person if may change to kougo 口語 (spoken language). This switch immediately yielded better results as I was then able to speak almost fluently. However, the other person kept speaking in 丁寧語, so unless the person is just naturally polite, I believe that they were trying to distance themselves from me.

However, social status and language use in Japanese is a very tricky concept that completely baffles me. I always assume that when someone speaks to me in 丁寧語 that they are pissed off with me and that they want nothing to do with me, but it can also be a way of humbling oneself to another's presence, especially when you are making a request. That being said, there is a clear distinction between keigo 敬語 (honourific and humble language) and teineigo 丁寧語 (standard polite form). 敬語 is mostly for addressing superiors, but it is also common among shop staff to their customers. The idea of 敬語 is to show that you are inferior to someone else, an idea that (coming from a Western perspective) just seems so wrong. Equality is a big deal over here, but in Japan everyone is ranked in some unseen social order that makes communication a minefield at times.

To further add to my confusion, I was added into a Japanese/English study group yesterday with a friend and her friend, a guy I've never met before. Surprisingly I was told to call him by the familial honourific kun 君, which is often given to younger men that you're buddies with. However, having never met the guy before, and his being older than I, I am completely at a loss to understand how it can be appropriate for me to call him 君. Does that mean I don't have to use teineigo 丁寧語? Are we on an even social level? He doesn't call me 君, he just uses my name... does that mean I'm not his buddy?

So frequently I am baffled by the Japanese language and how it is so integral to the culture it stems from. Baffled, but endeared.

[jvocab-of-the-day]

VOTD

お辞儀（おじぎ ; ojigi) - bow, bowing 

～（を）する = to bow

丁寧語 (teineigo/polite language)

ex. 部屋を出るときに、彼は先生にお辞儀をしました。(heya wo deru toki ni, kare wa sensei ni ojigi wo shimashita) - He bowed to the teacher as he left the room.

ex. こういうふうに、ちょっと頭を下げておじぎをするっていう意味ですよ。(kouiufuuni, chyotto atama wo sagete ojigi wo suru tte iu imi desuyo) - It means to lower your head a bit and bow, like this (way).

ex. 日本ではおじぎをするのが普通の礼儀です。(nihon dewa ojigi wo suru no ga futsuu no reigi desu) - In Japan, bowing is a common courtesy.