Let’s talk about honorifics.
As a native English speaker, I’ve always struggled with honorifics (keigo). Not with using them, really – using honorifics is basically just memorizing the sentence patterns, like any other phrase – but with physically using them, and slipping them into actually conversations without feeling like an utter dickhead.
Japanese and English are polar opposites in terms of communication. English is quite flat and based on a notion of equality across the board; Japanese, on the other hand, is a hierarchical society, and one’s position in the hierarchy and in relation to everyone else in the hierarchy is represented through their language. Okay, that much I get. But some of the honorifics that are widely accepted and commonly used in standard language – ones that have become set phrases rather than some bloated expression of respect – I have a problem with.
I teach seminars on English and translation, and to begin a seminar, I generally use a phrase like 始めさせていただきます. With Zoom, I generally say 画面を共有させていただきます when sharing my screen. This させていただく pattern encroaches in a lot of things that I say in a professional setting.
But wait. What is this phrase?
Let’s take a look at what I’m actually saying.
“to begin” is expressed through the verb 始める, or 始めます in the base polite form. But if we put this into keigo, it becomes such a mouthful.
In a seminar (or a speech, or a meeting, or a presentation, or any kind of formal setting), something like the below expression would be commonly used:
では始めさせていただきたいと思います。
Compared to 始める, it’s awfully long. So what am I actually saying?
If we translate it as is, it ends up something like this:
I think I would like you to allow me to begin.
Even if we switch to it the simpler では始めさせていただきます, it’s still something like “Please allow me to begin”.
Yes. That is how you start something in Japanese. It’s the most inefficient and superfluous expression in the world. A simple “let’s begin” would suffice, would it not? Why do we need to express our desire for the listener to allow us to begin, if we’re the person running the seminar or presentation or meeting or whatever?
But this is Japan and this is the Japanese way, so I say it brightly and with a smile. Never once has anyone dared me to not begin.
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You know, I try not to let keigo leak into my private life. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just too stubborn. Living in Australia, I tend to use Japanese quite casually in my private life. The other day, I met a Japanese person while out surfing… which is, as you can imagine, as casual of a private setting as you can get. I was getting changed in the carpark and he was wearing a wetsuit.
Later over dinner than night, we discovered that the guy was about six years older than me. Anyway, upon hearing that, I said something along the lines of “sorry for not speaking in keigo, but as a non-Japanese person, I would prefer to express my respect outside of language”.
Everyone present laughed, but it got me wondering… in Japan people don’t use keigo because they’re expressing respect, but rather because it’s socially expected of them. It’s like putting on shoes to go out. Society would reject you if you didn’t. It’s something you have to do to be regarded as a functioning adult.
But going back to my aversion to keigo in non-professional settings. Correlating keigo with respect must come across as an overly western perspective. But for me, in a private setting, it just seems stilted to use formal language with someone who I consider a friend, or want to become a friend. There’s something like an invisible wall maintaining a perfect distance, keeping one another at arm’s length as strangers.
I mean, I’m in my own house, making dinner for someone that I just met a few hours ago in the surf. For all hospitality and warmth and curiosity, I want to be unadorned and friendly. Politeness doesn’t come into the equation at all; rather, it seems almost rude in such a situation. So I ditch the keigo and start telling them my life story.
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