Oh I mean in daily life! If you say it’s more common in books I believe you
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Thank you for the comprehensive breakdown! The です after the ます was a real rookie mistake, I feel a bit embarassed. It seems like I still have more to learn. I’m honestly a bit confused by the difference in intransitive and transitive verbs (the textbooks I have don’t seem to have touched on that) but well, that’s part of the learning process.
One more question, because this has been something I’ve been a bit confused by — in order to be polite, you don’t have to end the mid-clause with the polite form, is that right? I’ve been reading the discussion below about ますので and honestly a lot of it went over my head. But if I’m reading it right, then it would be grammatically correct but too polite to use it.
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This is what Genki’s examples show, and there are examples in Tobira that work this way as well, though they’re a little less common, in my opinion. My experience so far is
- For conjunctions that work like ‘and’ or ‘but’ (けど、けれど、けれども、が), you generally maintain the same register on both sides: polite-[conjunction]-polite or casual-[conjunction]-casual
- For every other sort of conjunction, particularly the ones expressing cause and effect like から and ので, as well し, which is often used for justification, it’s fairly common to use the plain form first and end the sentence with the polite form. It’s the form of the final verb that has the greatest influence on the overall register. I personally prefer to maintain the same register throughout because that’s what I thought was correct, but it turns out that’s not necessary.
Not quite. It would be suitably polite if you were speaking to someone whose status demanded such respect, like a teacher whom you hold in high esteem. I’ve heard that it’s not strictly correct grammatically, but I’m not proficient enough in Japanese to know what search terms I should use in order to find out whether or not that’s true according to Japanese grammarians. Suffice to say, at a beginner-intermediate level, that です・ますので are fairly common in polite speech, though it’s a cut above the minimum required for being polite. It’s not honorific speech, which is an even higher level, though I think it would be fitting to couple です・ますので with honorific language. In everyday polite speech, however, you probably wouldn’t need to use です・ますので.
Finally, the truth is that using different registers isn’t just a matter of politeness. Here’s an article (a rather long one) from Tofugu about the details: Da (だ) vs Desu (です)—How People Use them in Real Life My personal takeaway: だ is self-oriented, expressive, spontaneous ‘no filter’ language. です evokes social considerations like distance, politeness, relative status, and one’s station in life or position in a given situation (e.g. work). I believe these characteristics apply to all words in the same registers.
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One of my host mothers said, in short, that it’s not strictly grammatically correct but it’s largely overlooked because at least they are making an effort to be polite. It was in the context of 丁寧語・尊敬語 falling out of favour with younger people. In Australian high schools it would definitely be marked wrong and probably go against your grammar marks
A further note, another one of my host mothers pointed out that my host father hardly uses any respectful language when in Zoom calls with his team (he’s not 目上 to any of them). Although this is only one case, it definitely feels as though it’s not being used as much as people might expect (or at least as much as I did).
Even my classmates talked to many of our teachers using casual language and one of the maths teachers (probably ~25 y/o) only used respectful language for comedic effect.
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Thanks for the insight!
That’s exactly the justification I’ve heard. Do you know why it’s ‘incorrect’ though? That’s what I’ve been wondering. At the moment, the best justification I’ve been able to come up with is that both ので and から begin with words that act as nouns: の is a common nominaliser, and から comes from 柄, which is clearly a noun. As such, one would expect them to be modified by the plain form of a verb. I don’t know where to start looking for a confirmation or rebuttal though.
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From a grammatical standpoint, it’s an interesting question. I can’t think of any actual grammatical rule that would prevent. It’s more that it is kind of stylistic error that some people might feel is wrong. Like how some people get really uppity over “on purpose” vs “by purpose” but there’s no real grammatical rule going on there…
It can sound like バカ丁寧 at times, but that is more situation specific.
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I’ve never heard ‘by purpose’… Do you maybe mean ‘on/by accident’ instead?
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No, I meant what I said. But “on accident” and “by accident” is also a thing that happens.
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Well, I think I’m about to get uppity.
… “By purpose” indeed.
Well, Google’s suggesting “by-purpose” is a word meaning an intent that you have concealed, and there’s also a book called “Driven by Purpose”, which is a usage I’m also happy to accept. Anyone who tries to use any phrasing like “I did that by purpose” is gonna get the stink-eye, though.
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In that case, I agree with @Belthazar! But let’s not further derail the thread. It is in the Japanese Language section, after all 
I will post my theses on the use of classical grammar in the 古今和歌集 after this so it gets un-derailed.
You definitely have a better grasp on the intricacies and origins of grammar than me so I’m not sure anything I can say would help. My first instinct is to say that it’s because します is a conjugation of する, but of course that doesn’t help because させる is also a conjugation of する but is still 辞書形. I’ll ask a native and get back to you d(^^) though it’s a pretty deep question so I’m not sure if they’ll know either
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They couldn’t answer why it was wrong but they replied with something I think is quite interesting which I’ll just leave here…
「電車がすぐ来ますのでご注意ください」
これはしゃべり言葉なんだよね。
日本語はしゃべり言葉と文章にする言葉では使い方が違うことが多いと思います。
しゃべり言葉は文法などは無視されてしまっていることが多いかもしれません。
駅の放送では「間もなく電車が来ます。ご注意ください。」と言ってますね。
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I don’t really understand the purpose of this sentence. Does it provide an example of grammatical rules being ignored, since that’s what the previous sentence was about? EDIT: Just to be clear, I asked because I don’t see any errors in that sentence. Perhaps I’m missing something?
I think I get the overall sense of the message though, and I think it’s interesting that the native speaker decided to contrast written and spoken language. Thanks.
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I think her point with the sentence was showing that even though the logical connection between 「間もなく電車が来ます。」and「ご注意ください。」would be a ので／から, the railway company deciding not using anything, because when you are trying to be both formal and correct, as in the announcement, 「来るので」feels informal while 「来ますので」is wrong, so they just give up the whole thing and throw it without a connector at all.
On a side note, all my Japanese teachers in Japan have always marked ますので as wrong, too. One may discuss the origins of such a view, but there is a clear consensus on current Japanese that it’s not an accepted form. I think one could compare it with English “ain’t” and so many other “we know it’s not right, but we do say it anyway” constructions.
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I’ve been wondering for a while - is there polite version of なるほど? Can you use なるほど when speaking 丁寧語?
なるほど is already not particularly casual. In casual situations you can use other things and it will sound more natural (やっぱり, そっか, そうだね, etc.). There’s no issue with using なるほど in conversations with strangers or people of higher status.
In 大辞泉 the example sentence is なるほど。おっしゃる通りですね。This is a 尊敬語 example.
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I would say it’s not particularly a big deal, and I think a lot of people won’t think about it. But you can see here as to why people think it may not be appropriate to speak use it when speaking to a boss or someone above you. So, if we want to really get into the weeds here, it says (for anyone too lazy to click the link):
「なるほど」という言葉を目上の人に使う場合、見下した印象を与える可能性があることに注意しなければなりません。
例えば「なるほど、その通りですね」と言った場合、まず相手の意見を評価し、その上で合意していることを示します。この「評価する」という行為は通常「上司が部下に対して行う」ことが一般的ですから、目下の人が使うと上から目線のように取られてしまうケースがあるのです。
また「なるほど」には相手の言ったことに感心し、褒めるニュアンスも含まれます。感心・褒めるという行為も、教師が生徒を、親が子供を褒めるように自分より下の立場の相手に対して行うものです。目上の相手には、生意気・失礼だと感じさせてしまうこともあるようです。
「なるほど」は敬語ではないので敬意が伝わらない
「なるほど」自体は最初に説明したとおり、副詞または感嘆詞として使う言葉であり、敬語ではありません。これがわかっている人であれば、「なるほど、なるほど」という相槌は、「うん、うん」や「あぁ、あぁ」と言われているのと同じことで、気安い印象を受けてしまいます。
It gives some suggestions after that, for just normal 丁寧語, “なるほど、そういうことですね” is fine. And then gives a few suggestions based on the exact meaning, such as はい、わかりました、おっしゃる通り、確かに、左様でございますか
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Are 面倒くさい・めんどうくさい and めんどくさい the same? If so is there a reason WK insists on ō?
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Well, we’re learning the kanji, which makes it quite clear that it’s 面倒 (めんどう trouble, difficulty) + くさい (smells of, smelling of). If you were to just encounter the word 面倒, you would have to read it めんどう, not めんど.
めんどくさい is indeed a common shortening of めんどうくさい, but I would say… if it’s written in kanji, you probably wouldn’t say it with a short o. Unless explicitly specified in the furigana. I get the sense that an author who wants to use めんどくさい probably would just use the kana.
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