ら抜き vs Honorific られる Confusion

Modern casual Japanese quietly deletes a syllable: 食べられる ("can eat") becomes 食べれる, 見られる ("can see") becomes 見れる. This is ら抜き言葉 — "ら-dropped speech" — and among friends it is so common it barely registers. The trouble is that the very ending it chops away, られる, is not only the potential. For one class of verbs it is simultaneously the potential, the passive, and the honorific. Drop the ら and you have not just spoken casually — in a keigo context you have destroyed the honorific form. This page is about that collision: why ら抜き is fine with your friends and forbidden the moment you switch into respectful speech.

First, what ら抜き actually touches

ら抜き only affects verbs whose potential is built with られる — that is, ichidan (一段) verbs and the irregular 来る. Godan (五段) verbs form the potential with -eru and never had a ら to lose, so they are completely outside this whole problem.

話す is godan; its potential is 話せる — no ら anywhere. You will never hear ×話せられる or ら抜き here because there is nothing to drop. Now the ichidan verbs, where the split appears:

食べれる and 見れる are the ら抜き potentials; 食べられる and 見られる are the full standard forms. In relaxed conversation both are heard constantly; the formation itself is covered on ら抜き言葉: 見れる, 食べれる.

The homograph problem: one られる, three jobs

Here is the fact that makes ら抜き more than a style choice. For ichidan verbs and 来る, the ending られる carries three grammatical meanings at once:

The three readings are true homographs — spelled and pronounced identically — and only context tells them apart. This one-form-three-meanings tangle is treated in full on One 〜られる, Three Meanings. What matters here is the asymmetry: ら抜き strips the ら out of the potential reading only. 食べれる can only be understood as "can eat"; it can never mean "be eaten" or the honorific "eats." In casual speech this is quietly useful — 食べれる is unambiguous where 食べられる is triple-loaded. But the honorific reading is exactly the one keigo needs, and ら抜き annihilates it.

Why keigo keeps every ら

In respectful language (尊敬語), られる is one of the standard ways to elevate the subject — see 〜られる as an honorific. When you say that a respected person "came," "left," or "read something," the full られる is the politeness:

Now watch what ら抜き would do to the first one. ×社長が来れました is not "a casual way to honor the president" — it is not honorific at all. 来れる is only heard as the (non-standard) potential "was able to come," so ×来れました reads as "managed to come," which is both the wrong meaning and too casual for a president. The politeness has evaporated along with the ら.

There is a second reason, independent of meaning: ら抜き is socially marked as informal-to-substandard. Broadcasters (NHK), newspapers, business writing, and formal speech avoid it on principle; the 文化庁 usage surveys still show a large share of speakers finding 見れる and 食べれる "bothersome" in careful contexts. So even where the honorific reading is not at stake, dropping ら inside keigo undercuts the very formality you were reaching for.

The English-speaker trap: importing casual ら抜き into keigo

Learners who pick up 食べれる and 見れる from friends, dramas, and YouTube tend to carry them straight into polite speech — and that is where it goes wrong on both counts at once. Suppose you want to ask a company president, honorifically, what they would like to eat:

The special honorific verb 召し上がる — see 召し上がる — sidesteps the whole mess, which is exactly why keigo prefers a special honorific verb (召し上がる, いらっしゃる, ご覧になる) when one exists. The られる form is grammatical but leaves the potential/honorific ambiguity live. What is flatly wrong is ×社長は何を食べれますか: ら抜き in keigo is non-standard and it has quietly deleted the honorific.

Reading direction: don't mistake honorific られる for "can"

The confusion runs the other way too. Because 来られる and 食べられる can each be either potential or honorific, a keigo-conscious listener must judge from context which is meant — and a business setting biases hard toward the honorific:

To a superior this is almost always the honorific "will you come," not the bald potential "are you able to come." Answering it as if it were a test of ability ("yes, I have the physical capacity to attend") misreads the register. This disambiguation load is the price keigo pays for keeping the ら — and it is a burden ら抜き casual speech simply does not carry, because there 来れる ("can come") and 来られる ("came," honorific) have already split apart. The trade-off is the whole story of this page.

Register summary

Common mistakes

Carrying ら抜き into honorific speech. In keigo the full られる is the honorific; dropping ら makes it non-standard and strips the respect.

Trying to honor someone with the ら-dropped form. ×来れました is never an honorific; it is only "managed to come," and casual.

Reading an honorific られる as "can." In a respectful context, 先生は来られますか is "will the teacher come?", not "is the teacher able to come?"

Hypercorrecting a godan potential by adding られ. Godan potentials never had a ら, so "restoring" one produces a non-word.

Key takeaways

• ら抜き drops the ら from ichidan and 来る potentials (食べれる, 見れる, 来れる); godan potentials (話せる, 行ける) never had one and are unaffected.
• For ichidan and 来る, られる is potential, passive, and honorific all at once — ら抜き removes the ら only from the potential reading, which is why casual speech tolerates it.
• In keigo the full られる is the honorific itself, so a keigo-conscious speaker never drops ら — both to stay formal and to preserve the respectful reading.
• When a special honorific verb exists (召し上がる, いらっしゃる, ご覧になる), prefer it — it dodges the potential/honorific ambiguity entirely.
• Reading an honorific られる as the potential "can" (or vice versa) is the mirror-image error; in respectful contexts, default to the honorific reading.