尊敬語 (そんけいご, "respectful language") is the honorific axis that elevates the person whose action or state you are describing. When your subject is someone above you — a teacher, a boss, a customer, an out-group (そと) visitor — you lift their verb into a respectful form to show that their doing is worthy of deference. This is the mirror image of 謙譲語 (kenjougo), which lowers yourself to create the same social gap from below, and it is a different axis again from 丁寧語 (teineigo), which merely polishes your speech toward the listener. Sonkeigo does something more targeted: it raises a specific referent — the one doing the verb.
Sonkeigo raises the subject, not the listener
The defining feature of sonkeigo is whom it honours. Teineigo (です・ます) is aimed at the person you are talking to. Sonkeigo is aimed at the person you are talking about — specifically, the grammatical subject of the sentence. If a respected person does something, you dress their verb in an honorific form.
先生はもう帰りました。
sensei wa mō kaerimashita
The teacher already went home. (polite, but not honorific about the teacher)
先生はもうお帰りになりました。
sensei wa mō okaeri ni narimashita
The teacher has already gone home. (respectful toward the teacher)
Both sentences are polite to your listener — both end in ます. But only the second one elevates the teacher, by turning 帰る into the honorific お帰りになる. That extra layer is sonkeigo, and it attaches to the subject's verb because the subject is the person being honoured.
社長がいらっしゃいました。
shachō ga irasshaimashita
The company president has arrived.
The iron rule: never sonkeigo about yourself
Because sonkeigo raises the person who does the verb, using it about your own actions would mean elevating yourself — which is not merely impolite but structurally wrong, and it makes a Japanese listener wince. The moment the actor is you (or your in-group — your family, your company, your team), you must abandon sonkeigo and humble yourself with kenjougo instead.
明日、私が伺います。
ashita, watashi ga ukagaimasu
I'll visit you tomorrow. (humble — kenjougo about myself)
明日、先生が来られます。
ashita, sensei ga koraremasu
The teacher will come tomorrow. (respectful — sonkeigo about the teacher)
Same event — someone going somewhere — but the axis flips with the subject. About myself: 伺う (humble). About the teacher: 来られる (respectful). The choice of sonkeigo is therefore itself a claim about who the subject is: to use it is to assert "the doer here is someone I look up to." (Which people count as "yourself" shifts with your audience — an in-group boss becomes someone to humble when you speak to an outside client; that relativity is developed in Whom to Elevate, Whom to Lower.)
The three routes to sonkeigo
There is no single honorific ending. Japanese elevates a verb by one of three mechanisms, and knowing which to use — and in what order to try them — is the whole craft of sonkeigo. Each route has its own page in this section; here is the map.
| Route | How it works | Plain → Honorific | Politeness weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| a wholly different suppletive word | いる/行く/来る → いらっしゃる; 言う → おっしゃる; 食べる → 召し上がる | strongest |
| お + ます-stem + になる template | 読む → お読みになる; 帰る → お帰りになる | strong, standard |
| the passive-shaped honorific | 話す → 話される; 来る → 来られる | lightest |
Route 1 — Special honorific verbs
A core set of everyday verbs has its own dedicated honorific word — a completely different form you simply memorise, the way English has "eat" but a fancy menu says "dine." These are the highest-frequency verbs of all (be, go, come, say, eat, see, do, give, know), so they are worth learning first. See Special Sonkeigo Verbs.
先生は毎朝コーヒーを召し上がります。
sensei wa maiasa kōhī o meshiagarimasu
The teacher drinks coffee every morning.
部長はそうおっしゃいました。
buchō wa sō osshaimashita
That's what the department head said.
Route 2 — The productive お〜になる pattern
For verbs without a special form, Japanese has a regular template you can apply to almost anything: お + the verb's ます-stem + になる. 読む → お読みになる, 使う → お使いになる, 待つ → お待ちになる. This is the workhorse of sonkeigo and gets its own detailed treatment in お〜になる: The Regular Honorific Pattern.
先生が推薦状をお書きになりました。
sensei ga suisenjō o okaki ni narimashita
The teacher wrote a letter of recommendation.
お客様がお待ちになっています。
okyakusama ga omachi ni natte imasu
The customer is waiting.
Route 3 — The lighter 〜(ら)れる honorific
The gentlest option reuses the passive form: add 〜(ら)れる to the verb. 話す → 話される, 出発する → 出発される, 来る → 来られる. It is quicker and less formal than お〜になる — common in speech and business where full honorifics would feel heavy — but because it looks exactly like the passive, context does the disambiguating. See 〜られる: The Honorific Passive-Form.
部長はもう帰られましたか。
buchō wa mō kaeraremashita ka
Has the department head already left?
社長は来週、出張に行かれます。
shachō wa raishū, shutchō ni ikaremasu
The president is going on a business trip next week.
Which route to choose
The routes are not free variants — there is an ordering. If a special honorific verb exists, it wins; you do not build お食べになる when 召し上がる is sitting right there. Only when no special form exists do you fall back on the productive お〜になる, and 〜(ら)れる is the lighter, more conversational alternative when full formality would be too much.
| Verb | Preferred sonkeigo | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 食べる | 召し上がる | special form exists → use it (not ×お食べになる) |
| 見る | ご覧になる | special form exists → use it (not ×お見になる) |
| 読む | お読みになる | no special form → productive お〜になる |
| 出発する | 出発される | lighter, conversational 〜られる is natural here |
Common mistakes
Mistake 1 — Using sonkeigo about yourself. The single worst honorific error: elevating your own action.
❌ 私が受付にいらっしゃいます。
Self-elevation — いらっしゃる raises its subject, and the subject here is you. Humble yourself with おります instead.
✅ 私が受付におります。
watashi ga uketsuke ni orimasu
I'll be at the reception desk.
Mistake 2 — Building お〜になる when a special verb exists. Regularising verbs that already have a dedicated honorific.
❌ 社長はもう昼食をお食べになりましたか。
Wrong route — 食べる has the special honorific 召し上がる, which takes precedence.
✅ 社長はもう昼食を召し上がりましたか。
shachō wa mō chūshoku o meshiagarimashita ka
Has the president already had lunch?
Mistake 3 — Confusing the axis: humbling a respected person's action. Using kenjougo (about-yourself language) for someone you should elevate.
❌ 先生が資料を拝見しました。
Wrong axis — 拝見する is humble (kenjougo). About the teacher's action you must elevate: ご覧になる.
✅ 先生が資料をご覧になりました。
sensei ga shiryō o goran ni narimashita
The teacher looked at the materials.
Mistake 4 — Leaving the verb polite but not honorific for a superior. ます alone is not sonkeigo.
❌ 社長は何時に来ますか。
Only teineigo — polite to the listener but flat about the president. Elevate the verb: いらっしゃる / 来られる.
✅ 社長は何時にいらっしゃいますか。
shachō wa nanji ni irasshaimasu ka
What time will the president arrive?
Key takeaways
- 尊敬語 elevates the subject — the person who performs the action — not the listener (that is teineigo) and not yourself (that is kenjougo).
- It can never take a first-person / in-group subject; the moment the doer is you or your うち, switch to kenjougo. So choosing sonkeigo is a claim about who the subject is — identify the subject first.
- Three routes, in priority order: special honorific verbs (strongest) → お〜になる (the productive template) → 〜(ら)れる (the lightest, passive-shaped).
- Special form wins if it exists; only then fall back on お〜になる. Don't stack routes together.
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Start learning Japanese→Related Topics
- お〜になる: The Regular Honorific PatternN3 — The productive sonkeigo template お + ます-stem + になる — how to build a respectful verb for almost anything, when the ます-stem resists it, and why the special forms always take precedence.
- 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.
- 〜られる: The Honorific Passive-FormN3 — The lightest respectful form — the same 〜れる／られる ending that builds the passive and the potential also elevates a subject, which is exactly why business Japanese leans on it.
- 謙譲語 Overview: Lowering Yourself to Raise ThemN3 — How humble language lowers your own action to elevate, by contrast, the out-group person it touches — the two routes (special humble verbs and the productive お〜する), and the modern split between 謙譲語I and 丁重語 that decides whether a form needs an honored target at all.