Nihongo 101

けいご

This chapter will be informative for those who want to understand more about the Japanese culture and language. It is not necessary to read, but I would highly recommend everyone to, especially if you would like to visit Japan or study Japanese fully one day.

Japanese has 2 parts to its speaking like every language. Informal and formal. I'm not going to try to scare anyone but Japanese formal language can be very difficult. So this may sound confusing. Japanese formal language has almost 2 parts to it, when you're looking at it from a Western point of view. You have the formal Japanese which you would use maybe talking to a peer who's a little bit older than you or an extended family member. Most of this formal Japanese doesn't change from informal except for you add です(desu) and ます(masu) at the end of a sentence. If you take Japanese at school, this is more than likely the kind of Japanese you're being taught. But on top of this "formal" Japanese there's an even more formal kind. This is called けいご (keigo). Now, keigo is extremely difficult and even native Japanese speakers say that it is hard to learn and don't like to use it. In this book, I may do 1 chapter on Keigo later on but Im not very good at it. I am actually just now learning how to speak proper keigo and not that it's hard, it's a lot of more old time Japanese words which does make it difficult because it's not terms you say or hear everyday. Some Keigo terms are the same as formal Japanese terms. Most of the time, keigo doesn't come into play unless you're talking in more complex sentences.

In Japan there are different times when to speak which form. Informal is used only while speaking to friends and close family like mom and dad. You can also use informal Japanese when speaking to someone younger than you. What I will mainly use throughout the book is a mix between informal and formal language because these are the most used in Japan.

"Formal" is used when you're talking to someone like a teacher, or department store worker. I typically know when to use it if I'm meeting someone for the first time or talking to a friends parent. Most of the time you use formal when you don't know the person you're talking to too personally.

There's a saying in Japan when to use keigo. It's "whenever you must raise your eyes." So in other words, someone who is older than you, by at least 5-10 years. Most Japanese children don't start learning keigo though until around middle school. The place you will see keigo used most is in a work setting. Keigo is mainly used when talking to a person in a higher rank than you are.

An example of all of this would be: I might be a business woman of a company. With my co-workers I'll talk to them in regular informal Japanese. My boss, I'll talk to with formal Japanese. However, the CEO of our company I will talk to using Keigo. Does this help make sense of everything I've said in this chapter?

I hope this gave everyone someone insight within the Japanese language. I'll begin writing actually Japanese lessons next chapter. Thanks! ありがとう！