One Verb, Three Axes: The Keigo Mapping

Keigo looks intimidating until you notice a shortcut hiding in plain sight: the verbs that go irregular are almost exactly the verbs you use every day. する, 行く, 来る, いる, 言う, 見る, 食べる, 知る — this handful covers a huge share of everyday speech, and every one of them has special honorific and humble forms that you cannot derive by rule. Learn this one table and you have unlocked most of the keigo you will actually hear. The productive お〜になる／お〜する machinery (covered on お〜になる and お〜する) then mops up the long tail of ordinary verbs.

The three axes, in one sentence each

Every keigo choice is really a choice on one of three independent axes:

• 丁寧語 (ていねいご, teineigo) — politeness toward the listener. This is the です／ます layer; see the 丁寧語 overview.
• 尊敬語 (そんけいご, sonkeigo) — respect that raises the subject (the person doing the action). See the 尊敬語 overview.
• 謙譲語 (けんじょうご, kenjougo) — humility that lowers yourself (or your in-group) so the other person stands taller by contrast. See the 謙譲語 overview.

This page is the cross-reference that ties them together, verb by verb.

The master table

Readings for the new words, first time through: なさる (nasaru), いらっしゃる (irassharu), 参る（まいる, mairu), 伺う（うかがう, ukagau), おる (oru), おっしゃる (ossharu), 申す（もうす, mōsu), 申し上げる（もうしあげる, mōshiageru), ご覧（らん）になる (goran ni naru), 拝見（はいけん）する (haiken suru), 召（め）し上（あ）がる (meshiagaru), いただく (itadaku), ご存（ぞん）じ (gozonji), 存じる（ぞんじる, zonjiru), お目（め）にかかる (ome ni kakaru).

The reframe: these are suppletive, not conjugated

Here is the mental shift that makes the table learnable. In English, go / went / gone look nothing alike but still feel like "one verb," and you would never expect to build them from a rule — you memorize them as a set. Japanese honorific verbs are the same kind of thing: 尊敬語 いらっしゃる and 謙譲語 参る are not inflected shapes of 行く. They are wholly different words that happen to cover the same meaning at a different politeness altitude. Linguists call this suppletion, and it is why you cannot reason your way to ご覧になる from 見る — there is nothing regular to reason from.

That sounds like more to memorize, but it is actually the good news: because these are lexical items, once you know いらっしゃる you know it for 行く, 来る, and いる all at once — the same word serves three plain verbs. The irregularity clusters, and the clusters shrink the workload.

The two rows you will use most, side by side

The clearest way to feel the sonkeigo–kenjougo split is to watch one plain verb fork depending on whose action it is. The subject's action goes up (尊敬語); your own action goes down (謙譲語).

The する row:

The 言う row:

In each pair the meaning is identical ("does" / "says"); only the altitude moves, and it moves in opposite directions depending on who the subject is. Choosing between them is entirely about whom you are elevating, never about the dictionary verb.

A wrinkle: the polite forms of the special sonkeigo verbs are irregular too

Four of the sonkeigo verbs above — なさる, いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, くださる (and the copula-related ござる) — belong to a tiny class of 〜る verbs whose 〜ます form is 〜います, not 〜ります:

The trap: don't run the productive pattern over verbs that already have a special form

This is the single most common structural error English speakers make once they learn the お〜になる／お〜する machinery. That machinery is real and productive — お読みになる, お待ちする — but it applies to the ordinary tail of verbs, not to the high-frequency verbs that own a special word. Because 見る has ご覧になる, ×お見になる is wrong. Because 行く has いらっしゃる, ×お行きになる is wrong.

The rule of thumb: check the table first. If the verb has a special form, use it; the productive お〜 pattern is only your fallback for verbs that don't. That is exactly why memorizing this short list pays off so heavily — it is the set of exceptions, and the exceptions are the everyday words.

An honest complication: 参る vs 伺う, 申す vs 申し上げる

The humble column hides a distinction Japanese speakers feel but rarely spell out. Some "humble" verbs lower you toward a specific person you are dealing with (these are 謙譲語 proper — 伺う "I'll visit you," 申し上げる "I say to you," 拝見する, お目にかかる). Others simply lower the tone of your own action politely toward the listener, with no particular honored target (these are sometimes called 丁重語 / humble-polite — 参る, 申す, いたす, おる, 存じる).

Practically: 伺う when you are going to the honored person's place or asking them something; 参る for neutral, formal "I'll go/come" with no specific person elevated (announcements, self-lowering politeness). 申し上げる when you are saying something to someone you honor (お礼を申し上げます); 申す for a plain humble "say," as in giving your own name.

Don't let this stall you at the start — using 参る where 伺う would be finer is a shade too blunt, not an outright error. The core split you must get right is sonkeigo vs kenjougo; the mairu/ukagau nuance is polish you add later.

Common mistakes

1. Applying お〜になる to a verb that has a special sonkeigo form.

2. Humbling someone you should be elevating. 参る / おる lower the subject — never use them for the honored person.

3. Elevating your own action. なさる / おっしゃる raise the subject — never use them for yourself.

4. Conjugating a special 〜aru verb regularly.

Key takeaways

• The highest-frequency verbs are exactly the ones that go irregular — so this one table unlocks most real keigo.
• The forms are suppletive (wholly different words), not conjugations: you cannot derive ご覧になる from 見る any more than went from go.
• One special word often covers several plain verbs — いらっしゃる serves 行く, 来る, and いる.
• Sonkeigo raises the subject; kenjougo lowers you. Pick by asking whose action it is.
• Never run お〜になる／お〜する over a verb that already has a special form (×お見になる → ご覧になる).
• The special 〜aru verbs take 〜います (なさいます, いらっしゃいます, おっしゃいます, くださいます), never 〜ります.