×저는 가십니다: Don't Honor Yourself

Learners meet -(으)시- described as "the polite infix," decide it means be polite, and then, wanting to be very polite indeed, aim it at themselves: ×저는 지금 가십니다, ×제가 도와드리시겠습니다, ×저는 밥을 드세요. Every one of these is comical to a Korean, because -시- does not mean "polite" — it means "the person I am talking about deserves elevation." Turn it on yourself and you are literally bowing to your own reflection. This mistake is not a small slip of degree; it exposes a wiring difference between English and Korean politeness that, once understood, prevents a whole family of errors.

The one idea: Korean politeness runs on two separate axes

English bundles all deference onto a single dial. "Would you please…," "I'd be happy to…" — the same softening words serve whether you are being deferential to your listener or respectful about some third party. Korean splits this into two independent systems:

• Addressee politeness — how you treat the person you are speaking to. This lives in the sentence ending: casual 반말, polite 해요체 (…요), formal 합니다체 (…습니다).
• Subject honorification — how you treat the person the sentence is about. This lives in the infix -(으)시-, attached to the verb.

These two dials move independently. You can be maximally polite to your listener (using 습니다) while talking about yourself — you just do not add -시-, because you are not someone you elevate. Conversely you can use -시- for a respected third party even in a casual sentence. Confusing the axes is what produces self-honorification: the learner reaches for -시- to be polite to the listener, but -시- only ever touches the subject, which in these sentences is themselves.

Both raise the listener through the ending (요 / 습니다) and leave the speaker plain. Adding -시- to make ×저는 지금 가십니다 would raise the speaker — you — which is the error.

-시- is for other people

The infix earns its keep when the subject is someone you respect — a teacher, a boss, an elder, a customer. Its allomorphy is simple: -으시- after a consonant-final stem, -시- after a vowel.

Note that these subjects are other people, and several take the honorific-subject particle 께서 in place of 가/이. The moment the subject is 저/제가, all of this shuts off.

Deference about your own actions: use humble verbs, not -시-

Here is the piece that resolves the learner's real intention. Often you do want to sound deferential while describing something you are doing for a respected person — helping them, asking them, giving them something. The tool for that is not -시- (which would honor you) but a humble verb, which lowers you and thereby raises the person you are serving.

So the fix for the tempting ×제가 도와드리시겠습니다 is not to remove the deference — it is to route the deference through the humble verb 드리다 and drop the -시-, giving 제가 도와드리겠습니다. The humble register is the correct home for talking respectfully about yourself.

One refinement: -시- does apply when your listener is the subject

"Never honor your listener" needs a small correction, because it can mislead. What you never do is elevate the listener as addressee with -시- — that job belongs to the ending. But when your listener is the grammatical subject of the verb — you are asking about their action, their state — then -시- is not only allowed, it is required, because now the listener is the subject that -시- raises.

The past-tense forms here — 드시겠어요, 하셨어요 — show -시- fusing with tense (하 + 시 + 었어요 → 하셨어요). This is the mirror image of self-honorification: when the doer is you, drop -시- (제가 뭐 할까요?); when the doer is the respected other — including your listener — add it. The infix tracks the subject, not the direction of the conversation.

Common Mistakes

1. Adding -시- to your own action. You cannot honor yourself.

2. Stacking -시- onto a humble verb. 드리다 already conveys the deference; -시- re-honors you.

3. Using an honorific verb for your own action. 드시다/드세요 is for others eating.

4. Honorifying yourself while trying to be humble about asking. Use 여쭤보다, not 물어보시다.

Key Takeaways

• Korean politeness has two axes: addressee politeness in the ending (요/습니다) and subject honorification in the infix -(으)시-. They move independently.
• -(으)시- raises the sentence's subject — a teacher, elder, boss — and can never target yourself or your listener directly.
• Allomorphy: -으시- after a consonant, -시- after a vowel (읽으세요, 가세요).
• To sound deferential about your own actions, use humble verbs (드리다, 여쭤보다, 뵙다), which lower you — not -시-.