Most verbs build their 尊敬語（respectful form） by the productive お〜になる pattern — お読みになる, お待ちになる. But a small set of the most frequent verbs refuse that pattern and use a special, suppletive word instead: an entirely different verb that already carries the respect built in. This page is the closed list. It matters out of proportion to its length, because these are exactly the verbs you use every hour — "eat," "say," "do," "see," "be," "come." The anchor is 召し上がる, the respectful form of both 食べる and 飲む.
The special 尊敬語 verbs
| 尊敬語 (special) | Plain base(s) | 丁寧語 (〜ます) | Request / imperative |
|---|---|---|---|
| いらっしゃる | いる・行く・来る | いらっしゃいます | いらっしゃってください／いらっしゃい |
| 召し上がる | 食べる・飲む | 召し上がります | 召し上がってください／召し上がれ |
| ご覧になる | 見る | ご覧になります | ご覧ください |
| おっしゃる | 言う | おっしゃいます | おっしゃってください |
| なさる | する | なさいます | なさってください／なさい |
| くださる | くれる | くださいます | ください |
| ご存じだ | 知る・知っている | ご存じです | — |
Readings: いらっしゃる (irassharu), 召（め）し上（あ）がる (meshiagaru), ご覧（らん）になる (goran ni naru), おっしゃる (ossharu), なさる (nasaru), くださる (kudasaru), ご存（ぞん）じ (gozonji). Note that 行く／来る／いる also have a fully productive alternative, おいでになる (oide ni naru), interchangeable with いらっしゃる in most contexts.
お飲み物は何を召し上がりますか。
o-nomimono wa nani o meshiagarimasu ka
What would you like to drink? (召し上がる — the guest's action, raised)
どうぞ、温かいうちに召し上がってください。
dōzo, atatakai uchi ni meshiagatte kudasai
Please, do eat while it's hot. (召し上がってください — the standard request form)
先生は今、研究室にいらっしゃいますか。
sensei wa ima, kenkyūshitsu ni irasshaimasu ka
Is the professor in their office right now? (いらっしゃる = いる, raised)
The 〜aる verbs take 〜います, not 〜ります
Four of the seven — なさる, いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, くださる — belong to a tiny irregular class of 〜る verbs whose polite form is 〜います, not the expected 〜ります. This is the single most common conjugation slip in the whole set.
| Special verb | Expected (wrong) | Actual 丁寧語 |
|---|---|---|
| なさる | ×なさります | なさいます |
| いらっしゃる | ×いらっしゃります | いらっしゃいます |
| おっしゃる | ×おっしゃります | おっしゃいます |
| くださる | ×くださります | くださいます |
Note that 召し上がる is a regular 五段 verb (召し上がります, no irregularity) and ご覧になる conjugates on になる (ご覧になります), so neither joins the 〜います club. Only the four listed do.
部長は何とおっしゃいましたか。
buchō wa nan to osshaimashita ka
What did the department head say? (おっしゃいました — the 〜aる past, not ×おっしゃりました)
ご記入いただき、こちらの箱に入れてくださいませ。
go-kinyū itadaki, kochira no hako ni irete kudasaimase
Please fill it in and place it in this box. (くださいませ — the 〜います polite imperative)
くださる hides in an everyday word: ください
You already use くださる every day without noticing — its imperative is ください（お待ちください, ご覧ください, 見てください）. That is the same くださる, meaning "[a superior] gives me [the favour of doing]." Recognizing this connects the polite ください you learned on day one to the honorific system.
恐れ入りますが、少々お待ちください。
osoreirimasu ga, shōshō o-machi kudasai
I'm terribly sorry, but please wait a moment. (ください = the imperative of くださる)
ご存じ is adjectival, not a verb
ご存じだ／ご存じです is the odd one out: it is not a verb but a な-adjective-like predicate ("is in a state of knowing"). So you say ご存じです（not ×ご存じします）, ご存じの方（"someone who knows"）, and ご存じない（"doesn't know"）. Its humble counterpart is the verb 存じる (存じております), covered on ご存じ.
この件について、部長はもうご存じですか。
kono ken ni tsuite, buchō wa mō gozonji desu ka
Is the department head already aware of this matter? (ご存じです — adjectival, not a verb)
ご存じの通り、来月から料金が変わります。
gozonji no tōri, raigetsu kara ryōkin ga kawarimasu
As you're aware, the fees change from next month. (ご存じの — attributive)
Why English gives you no head start here
English has address terms — "sir," "madam," "Professor" — but it has no way to swap the verb itself for a respectful one. "The president ate" and "I ate" use the identical "ate"; English shows deference by choosing softer framing ("would you care to…"), never by replacing "eat" with a loftier word. That is exactly why this list feels alien: you are not learning politeness (English has that), you are learning to reach for a different lexical verb the moment the subject is someone you honor. Treat these seven as vocabulary, not as conjugations — memorize 召し上がる the way you memorized 食べる, because to a Japanese ear they are two separate words, not two forms of one.
The trap: never run お〜になる over a verb that already has a special form
This is the structural error English speakers make once they learn the productive お〜になる machinery. That machinery is real — but it is the fallback for ordinary verbs only. A verb that owns a special 尊敬語 uses it as-is; stacking お〜になる on top produces 二重敬語（double keigo）, which is over-marked. Because 見る has ご覧になる, ×お見になる is wrong. Because 言う has おっしゃる, ×おっしゃりになる is wrong.
An honest wrinkle: お召し上がりください and お召し上がりになる are technically double keigo, yet they are so entrenched that authorities (and menus everywhere) treat them as tolerated fixed usage. Do not let that mislead you into building your own double forms — for every other special verb, the double version is simply wrong. The clean, always-safe choices are 召し上がってください and 召し上がりますか.
Common mistakes
❌ 社長は資料をお見になりました。
Wrong — 見る has the special form ご覧になる; お見になる (お〜になる over a special verb) is over-marked.
✅ 社長は資料をご覧になりました。
shachō wa shiryō o goran ni narimashita
The president looked over the documents. (special ご覧になる, used as-is)
❌ お客様は何時にいらっしゃりますか。
Wrong 丁寧語 — いらっしゃる is a 〜aる verb, so its polite form is いらっしゃいます, not ×いらっしゃります.
✅ お客様は何時にいらっしゃいますか。
okyakusama wa nanji ni irasshaimasu ka
What time will you (the customer) be arriving? (いらっしゃいます)
❌ 先生がそうおっしゃりになりました。
Wrong — おっしゃる is already 尊敬語; adding になる double-marks it. Just use おっしゃいました.
✅ 先生がそうおっしゃいました。
sensei ga sō osshaimashita
The teacher said so. (special おっしゃる, past おっしゃいました)
❌ この件は、私もご存じです。
Wrong direction — ご存じ raises the OTHER person's knowing; for your own, use the humble 存じております.
✅ この件は、私も存じております。
kono ken wa, watashi mo zonjite orimasu
I'm aware of this matter too. (humble 存じておる for my own knowing)
Key takeaways
- Seven high-frequency verbs use a special suppletive 尊敬語: いらっしゃる (いる／行く／来る), 召し上がる (食べる／飲む), ご覧になる (見る), おっしゃる (言う), なさる (する), くださる (くれる), ご存じだ (知る).
- One word covers several bases: いらっしゃる serves 行く, 来る, and いる.
- The four 〜aる verbs — なさる, いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, くださる — take 〜います (なさいます, etc.), never 〜ります. 召し上がる and ご覧になる do not.
- ご存じ is adjectival (ご存じです／ご存じの), and its imperative cousin ください is くださる you already know.
- Never re-honorify a special verb with お〜になる (×お見になる → ご覧になる); the productive pattern is only for verbs with no special form. お召し上がりください is a tolerated fixed exception, not a licence to build your own doubles.
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Start learning Japanese→Related Topics
- 尊敬語⇄謙譲語⇄Plain: Master Pair TableN3 — The keystone desk-reference pairing each everyday verb with its 尊敬語 (raise the other person) and 謙譲語 (lower yourself), across plain, honorific, humble, and です／ます — and the rule that direction of respect, not politeness level, picks the column.
- お〜になる: Regular Honorific FormationN3 — The single-shape reference for the productive honorific: お + ます-stem + になる across every verb class — with the ご + Sino variant, the full になる paradigm, and the two situations that block the template.
- The -aru Honorifics: Special 〜います StemsN3 — Five honorific verbs end in -る — いらっしゃる・おっしゃる・くださる・なさる・ござる — and share one quirk: before ます (and in the imperative) the り-row stem softens to -い-, giving いらっしゃいます, not ×いらっしゃります.
- 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.