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O + Verb Stem + Ni Naru (お〜になる): The Productive Sonkeigo Honorific Form

The o + verb stem + ni naru (お〜になる) respectful form is the productive sonkeigo pattern. It elevates the person performing an action by wrapping the verb's masu-stem in お and になる.1 Once you know a verb's masu-stem, you can make almost any action respectful without memorizing a separate honorific word.

Overview​

The Japanese government reference divides keigo (敬語, "respectful language") into categories. Sonkeigo (尊敬語) is the category that raises the person whose action, state, or thing is being described.1 It elevates the actor, not the listener.

Verb sonkeigo is built in two broad ways. A specific form (特定形) swaps the whole verb for a dedicated honorific word, such as 行く becoming いらっしゃる. A general form (一般形) applies productively across many verbs. The main pattern here is お(ご)……になる, such as 読む becoming お読みになる and 利用する becoming ご利用になる.1 This article treats the general form, お〜になる.

The reference lists other general forms alongside it: ……(ら)れる (the respectful れる/られる form), ……なさる, ご……なさる, お(ご)……だ／です, and お(ご)……くださる.1 Among these, お〜になる is the workhorse pattern because you can derive it mechanically from a verb part you already know.

This article is pitched at JLPT N3. At this level, learners move past teineigo (丁寧語, です／ます politeness) and start elevating the subject of a sentence.

Where this fits in keigo​

Sonkeigo is one of three keigo families a serious learner should separate early. Sonkeigo raises the respected person's actions, kenjōgo lowers the speaker's own actions, and teineigo (です／ます) is plain politeness toward the listener.1 お〜になる lives squarely in the sonkeigo family.

It sits on top of, not in place of, teineigo. Plain 読みます is polite to the listener; お読みになります is polite to the listener and raises the subject.1

Form: お + 連用形 + になる​

The pattern slots a verb's 連用形 (renyōkei, the masu-stem) between お and になる: お + [masu-stem] + になる.12 Everything hinges on isolating that stem.

Deriving the 連用形 (masu-stem)​

The masu-stem is what remains when you remove ます from the polite ます-form. So 読みます gives 読み, 待ちます gives 待ち, and 帰ります gives 帰り.3 Put that stem between お and になる, and the verb is now respectful.

これは、先生せんせいがお読よみになる本ほんです。4
"This is the book the teacher is going to read."

The government reference's own headline examples of the general form are 読む becoming お読みになる and 利用する becoming ご利用になる.1 The same derivation works for both godan and ichidan verbs because both have a masu-stem.

田中たなかさんは毎朝まいあさ、新聞しんぶんをお読よみになります。2
"Mr. Tanaka reads the newspaper every morning."

Do not confuse it with the humble お〜する

お(ご)……する is the humble (謙譲語Ⅰ) pattern. It lowers the speaker and cannot raise the listener. When asking whether the other party will carry something, お持もちしますか is wrong and お持もちになりますか is correct.1

お for native verbs, ご for Sino-Japanese verbs​

The prefix choice follows the お＋和語 / ご(御)＋漢語 principle. Native Japanese words (wago) take お, as in 読む becoming お読みになる and 出掛ける becoming お出掛けになる. Sino-Japanese サ変 (kango する-) verbs take ご, as in 利用する becoming ご利用になる and 出席する becoming ご出席になる.5

お客様きゃくさまがご到着とうちゃくになる予定よていです。4
"The guest is scheduled to arrive."

For a Sino-Japanese verb such as 出席する, the same ご pattern yields ご出席になる. The principle is a default rather than an absolute rule, because some words simply do not take お or ご comfortably.6

御 versus ご in the source spelling

The government reference writes this prefix with the kanji 御 throughout, as in 御利用になる and 御出席になる. In learner-facing writing it is normally written ご in hiragana, so expect that spelling difference when comparing against the original source.5

Conjugating になる​

になる behaves as an ordinary godan (五段) verb meaning "to become" or "to come to be." なる is an intransitive godan verb with the stem なり.7 The honorific compound therefore inflects on the なる tail exactly like any godan verb.

That gives the polite form お読みになります and the polite past お読みになりました.24

これは先生せんせいがお書かきになりました。4
"The teacher wrote this."

For the potential ("can" or "is able to") sense, the reference's rule is clear: build the sonkeigo form first, and only then make it potential. The result is お読みになれる or ご利用になれる.1 It explicitly warns that お(ご)……できる is the potential of the humble お(ご)……する and must not be used as a respectful potential.1

When to apply it​

The subject is the respected person​

Sonkeigo raises the person who performs the action or holds the state. In お〜になる, the subject is the respected party, such as a teacher, a customer, or a superior. You never apply it to your own actions.14

The reference frames sonkeigo as positioning that person high in words (その人物を言葉の上で高く位置付けて述べる).1 The form expresses respect toward 先生 as the one doing the reading.4

先生せんせいが熱心ねっしんに本ほんをお読よみになる。4
"The teacher reads the book intently."

Because the form elevates the subject, it cannot describe the speaker's own actions. For the speaker's side, Japanese uses humble (謙譲語) forms instead. This is the same contrast the reference draws when it warns against using humble お〜する as if it were respectful.1

Register and where you hear it​

お〜になる is formal and fully polite. It is used for the actions of in-group superiors and especially out-group respected people such as customers and guests. The example お客様がご到着になる points to the customer-service and business context where it is most often heard.4

Compared with plain teineigo (読みます), お〜になる adds subject elevation on top of listener politeness. Teineigo alone is polite to the listener but does not raise the actor.1 The reference situates the whole keigo system in the service of expressing appropriate human relationships.1

Exceptions: verbs that do not take お〜になる​

Not every verb can use the productive wrapper. Two groups opt out: verbs that have a dedicated honorific word, and verbs whose stem is too short to wrap.

Verbs with a dedicated sonkeigo form​

Verbs that have a specific (特定形) sonkeigo word use that word instead of the productive お〜になる. The reference's main list includes いらっしゃる (from 行く, 来る, いる), おっしゃる (from 言う), なさる (from する), 召し上がる (from 食べる, 飲む), and くださる (from くれる).1

山田やまださんはおそばを召めし上あがりました。2
"Mr. Yamada ate soba."

The dedicated verb wins because a verb that has a 特定形 normally does not also take the productive wrapper.1 So 食べる becomes 召し上がる, not お食べになる.

先生せんせいは来週らいしゅう海外かいがいへいらっしゃるんでしたね。1
"The teacher is going overseas next week, isn't that right?"

The same holds for 言う, which becomes おっしゃる rather than お言いになる.

先生せんせいのおっしゃるとおりです。4
"It is just as the teacher says."

ご覧になる (from 見る) is a related case: the reference lists it among the irregular お(ご)……になる formations rather than as a plain productive build.5 The full inventory of these irregular verbs is a topic of its own.

One-mora and short stems​

The TUFS reference states the exclusion directly: 来る, する, and Group 2 (ichidan) verbs whose stem is one mora, such as いる, 見る, and 着る, do not form おVになる.2 Their stems are too short to sit inside the お…になる wrapper, so *お見になる and *お寝になる are ungrammatical.

These verbs use lexical or irregular honorifics instead. The government reference lists ご覧になる (from 見る), お休みになる (from 寝る), お召しになる (from 着る), and おいでになる (from 行く, 来る, いる) as the irregular (変則的) builds.5 For 見る, the respectful form is ご覧になる, cited at the government reference.5

These forms look like お〜になる on the surface, but they are not freely derived from the masu-stem. They are fixed lexical items.5

お〜になる vs ～られる​

The same reference lists ……(ら)れる as the other general sonkeigo form. Its examples include 読む becoming 読まれる, 利用する becoming 利用される, and 来る becoming 来られる.1 It is a parallel respectful option to お〜になる.

中田なかた先生せんせいがこの本ほんを書かかれました。2
"Professor Nakata wrote this book."

The れる／られる form attaches directly to the verb rather than wrapping it, which makes it shorter to produce.

あの方かたは東京駅とうきょうえきで降おりられます。2
"That person gets off at Tokyo Station."

The government reference presents お(ご)……になる and ……(ら)れる as co-equal members of the general sonkeigo set, so they are interchangeable in many cases.1 Some teaching materials treat お〜になる as the more polite of the two. However, the government reference itself does not rank them by politeness, so treat that ranking as a teaching convention rather than a sourced fact.1

One boundary is firm: the reference flags that ご……される, such as ご利用される or ご説明される, is not an appropriate sonkeigo form.1

Good to know​

Do not double up: avoid 二重敬語​

二重敬語 (double keigo) means applying the same kind of keigo twice to one word. It is generally regarded as inappropriate.6 The classic case is お読みになられる, which is 二重敬語 because 読む is first made sonkeigo as お読みになる and then the sonkeigo ……れる is stacked on top.6

The correct form drops the second layer.

先生せんせいがお話はなしになる。4
"The teacher speaks."

The wrong version お話になられる stacks お〜になる and られる. The fix is お話になる. Likewise, おっしゃられる should simply be おっしゃる.4

Mnemonic for the slot​

Frame the pattern as a polite wrapper around the bare action stem: お … になる brackets the masu-stem.1 The reading stem 読み goes inside the wrapper to give お読みになる. Picture the stem dropping into a fixed slot between two honorific bookends.

Etymology aside​

になる contains the verb なる, "to become" or "to come to be," an intransitive godan verb.7 The honorific therefore frames the action as a state the respected person comes to or enters into, rather than directly stating that they did it. That "entered state" framing is the politeness mechanism behind the pattern, built on the literal meaning of なる.7

See also​

References​

Footnotes​

  1. 文化審議会. 『敬語の指針』(答申). 文化庁, 2007. 「２ 敬語の形 → １ 尊敬語 →（１）動詞の尊敬語 →①動詞の尊敬語の形」(pp. 23–24). 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

  2. 東京外国語大学. 「日本語 文法 02.48.2 敬語：解説」(言語モジュール). https://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/ja/gmod/courses/c02/lesson48/step2/explanation/092.html ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Wikibooks contributors. "Japanese/Grammar/Honorifics." Wikibooks. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Grammar/Honorifics ↩

  4. 「尊敬語をマスターしよう」. 国語文法 (kokugobunpou.com). https://www.kokugobunpou.com/敬語/尊敬語/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  5. 文化審議会. 『敬語の指針』(答申). 文化庁, 2007. 「【補足ア：「お(ご)……になる」を作る上での留意点】」(p. 24). https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/kokugo/hokoku/pdf/keigo_tosin.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. 文化審議会. 『敬語の指針』(答申). 文化庁, 2007. 「（２）「二重敬語」とその適否」/「（３）「敬語連結」とその適否」(p. 29). https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/kokugo/hokoku/pdf/keigo_tosin.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Wiktionary contributors. "なる." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/なる ↩ ↩2 ↩3