To say that a superior saw, looked at, watched, or read something, you do not conjugate plain 見（み）る — you use its honorific (尊敬語, sonkeigo) form ご覧（らん）になる. And when you invite someone to look at a document, a screen, or a slide, the everyday 見てください gives way to the far more polished ご覧ください. This one verb — and its short request form — is everywhere in Japanese working life, on museum placards, in "please see the attached file" emails, and in every "as you can see" gesture.
The build: a fixed honorific noun + になる
ご覧になる is not an irregular verb you have to memorize whole. It is transparently assembled:
ご（御）+ 覧（らん, "viewing")+ になる
覧 is the "look at / view" element you already know from 展覧会（てんらんかい, "exhibition") and 観覧車（かんらんしゃ, "Ferris wheel"). Prefix the honorific 御 (read ご here) and you get ご覧, a frozen honorific noun meaning roughly "the honorable act of looking." Drop it into the standard honorific frame 〜になる — the same frame behind お書きになる and お読みになる — and you have "to do the honorable looking."
社長はもう資料をご覧になりました。
shachō wa mō shiryō o goran ni narimashita
The president has already looked at the documents.
あの映画をもうご覧になりましたか。
ano eiga o mō goran ni narimashita ka
Have you seen that film yet?
Because ご覧 is a noun, everything after it is regular: ご覧になる → ご覧になります → ご覧になった → ご覧になりましたか. There is nothing exotic to conjugate; になる carries the inflection.
Watch, read, look — one honorific for all three
English splits "looking" into watch (a game, a film), read (a document, an email), and look at (a screen). Plain 見る already collapses watch and look, and covers "read" in context, so ご覧になる inherits that whole range. The same honorific serves "did you watch the match," "have you read my email," and "please look at this" — you never switch verbs the way English does.
昨日の試合はもうご覧になりましたか。
kinō no shiai wa mō goran ni narimashita ka
Did you watch yesterday's match?
お送りしたメールは、もうご覧になりましたか。
o-okuri shita mēru wa, mō goran ni narimashita ka
Have you already read the email I sent?
ご覧ください — the request form you'll use most
Because ご覧 is a noun, it slots straight into the honorific request frame お／ご 〜 ください (see お〜ください), giving ご覧ください: "please take a look." This is the polite counterpart of plain 見てください, and it is one of the most frequently seen keigo forms in daily Japanese — exhibition signs, "please refer to page 3," slideshow presenters, customer-service emails.
こちらをご覧ください。
kochira o goran kudasai
Please look over here / please see this.
詳しくは公式サイトをご覧ください。
kuwashiku wa kōshiki saito o goran kudasai
For details, please see the official website.
添付のファイルをご覧ください。
tenpu no fairu o goran kudasai
Please see the attached file.
You will also meet the fuller ご覧になってください (ご覧になる + てください). It is grammatical and heard, but ご覧ください is tighter and more idiomatic — prefer the short form unless the brief you are handed insists otherwise.
よろしければ、こちらの資料をご覧になってください。
yoroshikereba, kochira no shiryō o goran ni natte kudasai
If you don't mind, please take a look at these materials.
ご覧なさい and ご覧の通り
Two more fixed forms round out the set. ご覧なさい looks honorific but behaves like なさい — a gentle but directive command, the kind an adult uses to a child or a guide uses to point something out ("here, take a look"). It is mildly bossy, not deferential, so keep it away from your boss.
ほら、あそこを見て。虹が出ているよ、ご覧なさい。
hora, asoko o mite. niji ga dete iru yo, goran nasai
Look over there — there's a rainbow, take a look.
ご覧の通り ("as you can see") is a set discourse phrase, hugely common in presentations and explanations.
ご覧の通り、今年の売上は大きく伸びております。
goran no tōri, kotoshi no uriage wa ōkiku nobite orimasu
As you can see, this year's sales have grown significantly.
The humble mirror: 拝見する
"See" is one of the clean keigo verbs — like "say" and "eat," it has a matched pair. When you look at something belonging to or offered by a superior, you do not use ご覧になる (that would elevate your own looking); you lower yourself with the humble (謙譲語, kenjōgo) verb 拝見（はいけん）する.
| Who looks? | Verb | Example |
|---|---|---|
| the honored other | ご覧になる (sonkeigo) | 先生がご覧になる — "the teacher looks" |
| humble me | 拝見する (kenjōgo) | 私が拝見する — "I look" |
先生の写真はもうご覧になりましたか。私は昨日拝見しました。
sensei no shashin wa mō goran ni narimashita ka. watashi wa kinō haiken shimashita
Have you already seen the teacher's photos? I saw them yesterday.
いただいた資料は拝見しました。
itadaita shiryō wa haiken shimashita
I've looked over the materials you gave me.
Keep the pair as a matched set: 先生がご覧になる (up, for them) vs 私が拝見する (down, for me). The humble side is covered in full on the 拝見する page, and ご覧になる sits alongside the other suppletive honorifics on the special honorific verbs overview.
Showing something to a superior: ご覧に入れる
There is a third member of the family, easy to miss: the flip side of "you look" is "I let you look" — that is, "I show you." When you present something to a superior, the humble verb is ご覧に入（い）れる ("to place it into your honorable view") or its cousin お目（め）にかける. Both mean "to show," lowered.
では、実物をご覧に入れましょう。
dewa, jitsubutsu o goran ni iremashō
Well then, allow me to show you the actual item.
後ほど、詳しい資料をお目にかけます。
nochihodo, kuwashii shiryō o o-me ni kakemasu
I'll show you the detailed materials shortly.
So the ご覧 root spans all three angles: they look (ご覧になる), I look (拝見する), and I let them look (ご覧に入れる／お目にかける).
Common mistakes
Regularizing to ×お見になる. Just like 食べる, the verb 見る has a special honorific, so the manufactured お見になる is wrong. Use ご覧になる.
❌ 部長はこの番組をお見になりますか。
Wrong — 見る has a special honorific; ×お見になる does not exist. Use ご覧になる.
✅ 部長はこの番組をご覧になりますか。
buchō wa kono bangumi o goran ni narimasu ka
Do you (manager) watch this program?
Using ご覧になる about your own seeing. Aiming the honorific at yourself is self-elevation; your "see" is the humble 拝見する.
❌ 私が先生の論文をご覧になりました。
Wrong — you can't elevate your own looking; use the humble 拝見する for yourself.
✅ 私が先生の論文を拝見しました。
watashi ga sensei no ronbun o haiken shimashita
I read the teacher's paper.
Saying 見てください to a customer or superior. It is not wrong, but in service or formal contexts it lands as blunt; the elevated act calls for ご覧ください.
❌ お客様、こちらのメニューを見てください。
o-kyakusama, kochira no menyū o mite kudasai
Too blunt for a customer — 見てください is neutral courtesy, below service register.
✅ お客様、こちらのメニューをご覧ください。
o-kyakusama, kochira no menyū o goran kudasai
Please take a look at this menu, sir/madam.
Confusing ご覧なさい with a deferential form. Its honorific-looking shell hides a directive; do not aim it upward.
❌ 社長、この書類をご覧なさい。
shachō, kono shorui o goran nasai
Wrong tone — ご覧なさい is a mild command (downward); to a superior use ご覧ください.
✅ 社長、この書類をご覧ください。
shachō, kono shorui o goran kudasai
President, please have a look at these documents.
Key takeaways
- ご覧になる is the honorific of 見る — "see / look / watch / read" — built from the fixed honorific noun ご覧 plus になる.
- Because ご覧 is a noun, all tenses are regular (ご覧になります／になった) and it feeds the request form ご覧ください, the polite twin of 見てください.
- ご覧なさい is a gentle command (downward, like なさい), not a deferential form; ご覧の通り means "as you can see."
- The humble mirror is 拝見する: 先生がご覧になる vs 私が拝見する — a clean sonkeigo/kenjōgo pair.
- Never regularize to ×お見になる, and never point ご覧になる at your own eyes.
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- 拝見する: Humble See / LookN3 — 拝見する is the humble 謙譲語I of 見る for looking at a superior's things — and its 拝 prefix ('to bow') is a productive humble family: 拝見 see, 拝借 borrow, 拝読 read, 拝聴 listen, all meaning 'humbly receive the honored X.'
- Special Sonkeigo VerbsN3 — The suppletive honorific verbs — いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, なさる, 召し上がる and the rest — that replace the productive patterns for Japanese's highest-frequency verbs, plus the ラ行 〜います quirk that ties five of them together.
- お〜ください: Honorific RequestsN3 — お＋ます-stem＋ください (ご＋Sino-noun＋ください) is the honorific request frame — お待ちください, ご確認ください — more deferential than plain 〜てください because it elevates the very act you're asking for, which is why you meet it on every sign and service counter.