Keigo Grammar Overview: How to Conjugate Honorific, Humble, and Polite Verbs

Learning how to conjugate keigo verbs is less about memorizing new vocabulary and more about applying a register layer to verbs you already inflect.¹ Keigo (敬語) reshapes ordinary verbs through three branches: sonkeigo, kenjōgo, and teineigo. Two follow productive rules, and the other forms come from a short irregular list.¹²

Keigo is not a separate language. It is a politeness layer that sits on top of the plain and polite verb forms you already produce. The resulting keigo verbs re-enter the same conjugation machine, taking ます, the te-form, and tense like any other verb.¹³

Keigo has three traditional branches. Sonkeigo (尊敬語) raises the other party's action, kenjōgo (謙譲語) lowers the speaker's own action toward that party, and teineigo (丁寧語) adds politeness to the utterance itself.¹²

Two of these have a productive formation, meaning a rule you can apply to almost any verb: お＋連用形＋になる for sonkeigo and お＋連用形＋する for kenjōgo. A small closed set of high-frequency verbs ignores the rule and uses dedicated irregular forms you memorize.⁴³

This overview assumes you already control the masu-form, the te-form, the plain form, tense, and the 連用形 (renyōkei, the masu-stem). It is aimed at the N3+ entry point to the keigo verb layer.⁵

What Keigo Is: The Three Branches (and the Modern Five)

Sonkeigo, Kenjōgo, Teineigo: Who Gets Raised, Who Gets Lowered

The three branches divide by a single question: whose status moves, and in which direction.¹²

Sonkeigo (尊敬語, respectful language) describes the other party's action or possessions as elevated, which raises that party. Its official type-label is the「いらっしゃる・おっしゃる」型.¹²

Kenjōgo (謙譲語, humble language) lowers the speaker's own action when that action is directed toward the respected party. This raises the recipient by contrast. Its official type-label is the「伺う・申し上げる」型.¹²

Teineigo (丁寧語, polite language) adds politeness to the utterance toward the listener, independent of who acts. This is the「です・ます」型 you already use.¹²

Branch	Whose action	Direction	Type-label
尊敬語 sonkeigo	the other party's	raises the doer	「いらっしゃる・おっしゃる」型
謙譲語 kenjōgo	the speaker's, toward that party	lowers the speaker, raising the recipient	「伺う・申し上げる」型
丁寧語 teineigo	any (the utterance itself)	polite toward the listener	「です・ます」型

The doer test for sonkeigo versus kenjōgo

Ask whether the respected person is the doer or the recipient of the speaker's act. If they are the doer, use sonkeigo. If the speaker acts toward them, use kenjōgo. 謙譲語I expresses respect by lowering an action whose 向かう先 (destination) is the honored person.⁶

The 2007 Five-Category Refinement (敬語の指針)

In its 2007 report (平成19年), the 文化審議会 (Council for Cultural Affairs) issued 『敬語の指針』, refining the three-branch model into five categories.¹² The refinement splits 謙譲語 into two categories and 丁寧語 into two categories, yielding 尊敬語, 謙譲語I, 謙譲語II（丁重語）, 丁寧語, and 美化語.¹²

謙譲語I is the directed-humble class: it lowers an action directed at a specific honored party to raise that party. Its type-label is the「伺う・申し上げる」型.¹

謙譲語II, also called 丁重語, humbles one's own action toward the listener generally, with no specific honored target. Its type-label is the「参る・申す」型, including 参る, 申す, おる, and 存じる.¹²

美化語 (bikago) "beautifies" the thing being referred to through the お／ご prefix on nouns, regardless of any honored person. Its type-label is the「お酒・お料理」型, including お酒, お料理, and ご近所.¹²

The 丁重語 class is what lets a train be humble

The 参る・申す type makes 電車が参ります possible. The train is not a person to be honored, so this is courtesy toward the listener, not humility toward a recipient.¹

The five-category model refines the three-branch model rather than replacing it: 謙譲語I and 謙譲語II both descend from the older 謙譲語. A learner therefore still starts from the three branches and treats the five categories as a sharper cut through the same material.¹²

Where Keigo Sits Relative to Plain and Polite Speech

Teineigo (です／ます) is the politeness baseline, or 丁寧体, that you already produce. Sonkeigo and kenjōgo do not replace it. They stack on top of it and still take the ます ending.¹³

The productive forms show this directly: お読みになります and お持ちします both end in ます.¹ Because keigo verbs remain ordinary verbs, they re-enter the plain and polite (普通体／丁寧体) system rather than becoming fixed phrases.⁶³

The same verb can take either branch depending on who acts, while keeping the same ordinary ます tail.

課長かちょう、そのファイルも会議室かいぎしつにお持もちになりますか。⁶
"Section Chief, will you bring that file to the meeting room too?"

課長かちょう、そのファイルも会議室かいぎしつにお持もちしますか。⁶
"Section Chief, shall I carry that file to the meeting room too?"

The first is sonkeigo: the chief is the doer, so お持ちになる applies. The second is kenjōgo I: お持ちする humbles the speaker's own act of carrying the file toward the chief. Bunka-chō (the Agency for Cultural Affairs) presents these two as the classic confusion pair.⁶

The Two Productive Formations: Rules You Apply

Sonkeigo: お＋連用形＋になる

The productive respectful pattern is お＋連用形＋になる. Here, 連用形 means the masu-stem: 読む becomes お読みになる.⁴³

With Sino-Japanese (kango) verbal nouns, the prefix is ご rather than お, as in ご利用になる and ご乗車になる.⁷ The pattern also stacks with the aspectual tails you already know because になる is itself an ordinary verb. お読みになりやすい and お分かりになりにくい are attested forms.⁷

Use になる, not される, for productive sonkeigo

Bunka-chō flags 御利用される and お読みされる as dispreferred forms. The になる form is the recommended productive sonkeigo.⁷

Single-mora masu-stems, stems only one mora long, resist this pattern. Verbs like 見る (stem 見) and 寝る (stem 寝) default to an irregular suppletive form, such as ご覧になる, or to the れる／られる respect form, instead of taking お＋連用形＋になる. The exhaustive restriction list belongs to the dedicated sonkeigo article.⁴

Kenjōgo: お＋連用形＋する／いたす

The productive humble pattern is お＋連用形＋する. For example, 持つ becomes お持ちする.⁴³ It is 謙譲語I, used only when the speaker performs the action and that action is directed toward the honored party.⁶

With kango verbal nouns, the prefix is again ご, as in ご説明する and ご案内する.⁷ The tail いたす is humbler than する. お持ちいたす and ご説明いたす lower the speaker's act further.¹

Why Both Ride on the Masu-Stem (連用形)

Both productive formations attach to the same 連用形 that you already use to build the ます form. From 読む you get 読み(ます). From that single stem, you build both お読みになる and お読みする.⁴³

This shared anchor makes the patterns productive rather than memorized. Any regular verb with a usable masu-stem can in principle take them. That is why they are stated as rules, while the irregular verbs are stated as a list.⁴³

お待まちになります／お待まちします³
"(They) will wait (respectful) / I will wait (humble)."

The same masu-stem 待ち feeds both formations.

The Irregular Sets: Forms You Memorize

Why High-Frequency Verbs Go Irregular

A closed set of high-frequency verbs takes suppletive keigo forms, meaning replacement forms, instead of the productive rule. For verbs like いる, 行く, 来る, 食べる, 飲む, 言う, する, 見る, and 知る, the productive お＋連用形＋になる／する pattern is blocked or strongly dispreferred.⁴³

This irregularity follows frequency. The most-used verbs carry dedicated, often older, suppletive forms. This is a common cross-linguistic pattern, where high frequency preserves irregularity.⁴ Several single-mora-stem verbs (見る, 寝る, 出る) fall into this set because the productive お＋連用形 path is awkward on a one-mora stem.⁴

The Core Pairs at a Glance

This table covers the highest-frequency verbs as an orientation. The full reference tables, with around fifteen verbs each, are in the dedicated articles.¹⁴³

Plain	Sonkeigo (respectful, other's act)	Kenjōgo (humble, own act)
いる／行く／来る	いらっしゃる14	おる（行く／来る: 参る／伺う）14
食べる／飲む	召し上がる14	いただく4
言う	おっしゃる4	申す／申し上げる14
する	なさる14	いたす14
見る	ご覧になる43	拝見する43
知る	ご存じだ4	存じ上げる／存じる4

The kenjōgo column includes two of the 2007 categories. 申し上げる and 伺う are 謙譲語I, directed at an honored recipient. 申す and 参る are 謙譲語II／丁重語, courtesy directed toward the listener.¹

ご存じだ is a predicate, not a になる verb

The sonkeigo for 知る is ご存じだ (ご存じです), an adjectival or nominal predicate, not a productive になる verb. Do not force it into the お＋連用形＋になる frame.⁴

明日あした父ちちのところに伺うかがいます。⁶
"Tomorrow I will visit my father's place."

This is suppletive kenjōgo: 伺う stands in for 行く. The speaker humbles their own act of going toward the honored party.

How Keigo Re-Enters Ordinary Grammar

Keigo Plus Masu-Form and Tense

Keigo verbs inflect for tense and politeness like any other verb. お読みになる takes the ordinary past form お読みになりました.⁶

The る-ending suppletive sonkeigo verbs show a regular る→い shift before ます. いらっしゃる, なさる, くださる, and おっしゃる become いらっしゃいます, なさいます, くださいます, and おっしゃいます.³ ございます (tied to ある) and the copula でございます belong to the same irregular-before-ます family.¹⁴

The る→い shift is a class property, not a keigo rule

The る→い-before-ます shift is shared by a small closed class: いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, なさる, くださる, and ござる. It is a property of this class, not of keigo in general.³

Keigo Plus the Te-Form

Productive sonkeigo feeds the te-form normally. お読みになる becomes お読みになって.⁶³ Suppletive sonkeigo feeds て＋ください to build respectful requests. For example, 召し上がる yields 召し上がってください.⁴

No special keigo te-form rule exists. Te-form chaining and request forms built on keigo stems behave like ordinary te-form chains.³

Nuance and Usage Contexts

Direction of Respect: Subject vs. Speaker

The most common learner error is choosing a branch by politeness level rather than by who acts. The rule is direct: if the respected person is the doer, use sonkeigo. If the speaker acts toward the respected person, use kenjōgo.⁶

Bunka-chō frames this as 尊敬語 VS 謙譲語I, the title of its lesson on easily confused keigo. It uses the お持ちになる／お持ちする pair to illustrate it.⁶

担当者たんとうしゃに伺うかがってください。⁶
"Please ask the person in charge."

Bunka-chō flags this as a type of error. 伺う is 謙譲語I and humbles the listener's own future act of asking. That is inappropriate when telling the listener to do it; a sonkeigo or neutral form is correct here.⁶

Uchi-Soto and the In-Group Effect

When speaking to an outsider (外, soto), a speaker treats their own in-group (内, uchi) from the listener's point of view. In-group referents therefore do not receive sonkeigo. The speaker may even humble a superior from their own company toward an outside party.⁴

This is why a speaker may use 申す or おる about their own boss when talking to a customer. The 丁重語 (謙譲語II) forms carry that humility toward the listener. The dedicated article gives the full treatment of asymmetric keigo. This is a preview.⁴

Register Ladder: How Polite Is Too Polite

Register runs from the teineigo baseline (です／ます), through full sonkeigo and kenjōgo, to hyper-polite customer-service usage. Choosing too high a level can sound unnatural or obsequious.¹⁷

Some hyper-polite forms have hardened into nonstandard but common service usage, such as お＋する used where it does not belong. Bunka-chō treats certain overshoot forms as points of confusion in service language. For example, it contrasts 御乗車できません with 御乗車になれません, showing that more is not better.⁷ The level-selection article gives the decision tree for choosing a level.

Good to know

The 二重敬語 trap: stacking two sonkeigo on one verb

Adding a second layer of the same branch to one verb produces 二重敬語 (double keigo). The form お読みになられる is the textbook case. 読む is first made sonkeigo as お読みになる, then the sonkeigo れる is stacked on top. Bunka-chō defines 二重敬語 as using the same kind of keigo twice on one word and generally judges this inappropriate.⁶ The correct respectful form uses a single layer.

お読よみになる⁶
"(They) read (respectful)."

A few double forms have settled into accepted idiom, including お召し上がりになる and お見えになる for sonkeigo, and お伺いする, お伺いいたす, and お伺い申し上げる for kenjōgo.⁶

Don't honor yourself: sonkeigo on your own action

Applying sonkeigo to your own action honors yourself, because sonkeigo raises the doer. Saying 御説明になります about something you yourself will do is the error pattern. Your own act directed at the honored party takes 謙譲語I instead: お／ご＋する／いたす. The correct form is 御説明します or 御説明いたします. Bunka-chō treats this confusion directly in its 尊敬語 VS 謙譲語I material.⁶⁷

Up THEM, down ME

A compact mnemonic resolves most branch choices: sonkeigo raises the other party's action (up them), while kenjōgo lowers your own action toward them (down me). The doer test follows directly. It also matches Bunka-chō's 立てる (raise) framing for both branches.¹⁶

Etymology aside: ございます, おる, and the courteous register

ございます (from ござる) and おる function in the system as 丁重語／丁寧語 layers. They express courtesy and politeness toward the listener rather than respect directed at a recipient. おる is the 謙譲語II "be" form that supports humbling one's own group.¹² Recognizing them as the 参る・申す・おる (丁重語) family explains why they pair with ます but do not raise any specific person.¹²

お versus ご, and the bikago tie-in

The beautifying and honorific prefix split by word origin: お attaches to native (wago) items such as お酒 and お料理, while ご attaches to Sino-Japanese (kango) items such as ご近所 and ご説明. The same お／ご split governs the productive formations: お読みになる versus ご説明する.¹²³ 美化語, the「お酒・お料理」type, is the 2007 category that isolates pure beautification, where no honored person is involved.¹²

See also

• How to Write a Japanese Business Email: Keigo Guide
• The Masu Form (ます): Polite Present and Future Tense
• The Japanese Verb Stem (連用形): The Masu-Stem and Its Uses
• Polite vs. Plain Japanese: です/ます vs. だ (丁寧体・普通体)
• Japanese Giving and Receiving Verbs: あげる, くれる, もらう

References

Footnotes

1. 文化審議会. 『敬語の指針』（答申）, 平成19年（2007年）2月2日. 文化庁. https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/kokugo/hokoku/pdf/keigo_tosin.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸ ↩²⁹ ↩³⁰ ↩³¹ ↩³² ↩³³

2. 文部科学省. 「平成18年版 文部科学白書 コラム18．文化審議会『敬語の指針』（答申）について」. https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab200601/column/018.htm ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

3. "Japanese/Grammar/Honorifics." Wikibooks. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Honorifics ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸

4. "Honorific speech in Japanese." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific_speech_in_Japanese (encyclopedic overview; primary-source-anchored where cited). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷

5. The Japan Times. Banno, Eri, et al. Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese II (Lesson 19, Honorific and Humble expressions). The Japan Times / Kurosio Publishers. ↩

6. 文化庁. 「敬語おもしろ相談室 第四話『間違いやすい敬語（1）～尊敬語 VS 謙譲語I』理解度チェックの解答」. https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/kokugo_nihongo/kokugo_shisaku/keigo/chapter4/detail.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸

7. 文化庁. 「敬語おもしろ相談室 第五話『間違いやすい敬語（2）～尊敬語あれこれ～』理解度チェックの解答」. https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/kokugo_nihongo/kokugo_shisaku/keigo/chapter5/detail.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷