Hello, Kinozato, that’s a funny example but it’s way beyond formal! Only courtiers speak like that!
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Men! We don’t know what we did!
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bit of a tangent, but: in switzerland we speak a whole bunch of languages. french, german, italian, rumantsch… in the german-speaking part, we actually speak 2 languages: german and swiss-german (some might argue that swiss-german is but a dialect, but my brain does the whole language-switching thing, so i argue that it’s a language).
both languages have a formal (polite) and informal register.
the fun/interesting thing is how and when we use the two languages: with friends, we talk swiss-german (informal). with a shop-keeper we talk swissgerman (polite). the teacher teaches in german, but social interactions between teacher and student are in swissgerman. on tv, the news is in german, but the weather in swissgerman (and sports kind of varies). your bills are in german, but a whatsapp with a friend is in swissgerman (even though swissgerman was never a widely written language).
so by switching between swissgerman and german, you signify a really strong shift in formality. it’s not exactly rude, but it would certainly create a sense of distance.
many germans have told me that they find it really difficult to make friends with swiss people. but of course germans don’t speak swiss-german, and many swiss people never learn to use german for any kind of casual interaction. so even though the german person might by using very casual language, it would feel very formal to the swiss person.
at a wedding, a happy casual event where swiss-german would be a given, there’s also a bunch of legal proceedings which are formal, and in german. usually the registrar would switch between swissgerman and german for the various parts. but on one occasion, when the registrar was also a close friend of the bride, she kept it more casual by reading the legal text with german grammar but swissgerman vocabulary 
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i imagine that different levels of polite/casual language have a similar feeling in japanese. so that speaking with an inappropriate level of polite/casual speech would shift the perceived context of the conversation. so that it’s not exactly rude, but mostly just feels weird and perhaps a bit off-putting?
of course i’m still very much a learner, but having grown up with this strong disconnect between casual and formal language, perhaps there’s something i can use for japanese too ^^
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Well, as you probably know in Germany we have a formal and standard version for “you”. “Sie” and “du”. It creeps me out and makes me feel old, if young people refer to me as “Sie” 
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@Mrs_Diss
That’s very interesting! Thank you for sharing. The thing is, in Spanish we also have specific words for showing politeness and respect; something not present in the English language. Now I would like to know all the countries that have a formal and informal way of talking. I wish I could speak all languages Lol
Exactly. For example, in Spanish we can say:
Usted va a ir a la reunión este jueves? (Polite: are you going to the meeting this Thursday?)
But if we want to make it polite in English we have to alter the sentence.
Sir, are you going to the meeting this Thursday? Or
Sir, will you be going to the meeting this Thursday?
I guess you could also say:
Are you going to the meeting this Thursday? But I’ve always found this to be to too direct when referring to a boss or someone you have just met, for example.
This is one of the things I hated about English when I first started learning it. The fact that there are no words for formal and informal.
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Perhaps you could say:
Will you be attending the meeting this Thursday?
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More formal “Will you attend the meeting this Thursday?”
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Yes, it could be made more formal. I just meant that there aren’t specific words for it 
we of course have Sie and Du too, both in german and swiss-german. in the classroom, one would definitely use Sie with the teacher (and the teacher depending on your age also Sie, or Du). but you would also be switching between swissgerman and german; if the teacher asks you to distribute a handout, that’d be in swissgerman, but while actually teaching, that’d be german.
and yeah, i really don’t like being called Sie, or vous in french either…
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I completely forgot that the exact same system exists in French…
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I find the structure and rules of languages fascinating.
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I think English used to be a bit more formal, but in America especially a lot of that went out the window as class distinctions started to dissolve. If you read old books, people are referred to by last name. Using someone’s first name would either be for a very close friend, or the way you would address a servant. Now that we don’t have servants, everyone uses first names in social contexts.
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Haha, very much this :D. I started abusing いや when practicing formal sentences as well, unfortunately.
Imagine that うん and ううん (not うんん) are onomatopoeia, like uhm and mhm in English.
In English I would say that depends on the level of formality. If you keep your end of the conservation extremely formal and not only occasionally as a joke, it might make you sound stuck-up, like you’re from the nobility and “know better”.
In Japanese it depends, I would say. There is probably nothing wrong with being polite in general and oftentimes you would use polite speech with people you are not familiar with too well. But among peers and family members it would simply sound weird 
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Occasional です and はい are non-issues. You can even use はい to emphasize that you’re certain/serious about your response.
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I don’t know if it’s a matter of slightly imprecise word choice on Misa’s part or if she literally meant that it’s rude, but I think… well, I’m not sure about いいえ, but I have to admit that it feels kinda stilted because you have to drag out the い and it’s a kinda high-pitched sound that breaks the flow of the conversation. I never ever use はい when talking to my fluent friend though; I always use ええ. However, he’s not Japanese, however fluent he is, so I don’t know if there are situations in our conversations where a Japanese person would have told me to use はい instead. I strongly doubt it though, and he’s never told me otherwise. I’m personally more used to いや from anime, but I haven’t used it in a text message yet because I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be spelt the same way as the adjective 嫌. (Their meanings are very similar though, so I’ve always told myself that it’s logical.)
Whatever the case, even if it’s not rude, I think it’s awkward. I think I once saw someone quoting Japanese people as saying that speaking in keigo is tiring. That’s part of why some people prefer to speak casually after work. I think it’s a matter of what keigo reflects, and even if it’s not obvious to us as non-native speakers who are often just trying to parse sentences rapidly, I think it’s kinda jarring when you remember how much longer sentences get when you speak politely. It’s not as simple as just kicking formality up a notch in English or Spanish. I mean, I don’t know Spanish that well, but I think that suddenly calling your friends “ustedes” and using “su” for everything instead of sticking to “vosotros” and “vuestro/a” would feel strange, especially if you started spouting literary phrases or sentences used to end formal letters. Similarly, while English doesn’t really have a clear split between registers, imagine if… Oh, I am not certain, but if I may say so, I pray you try to imagine me speaking thusly with you, good sir/ma’am, all the time although I be your friend. Might I ask how your day has been hitherto?.. Seriously speaking though, can you see how much distance that would put between us (or between you and a friend of yours speaking in my place) if I kept speaking like that the entire conversation? You’d be speaking to your friend like your boss, or worse, like someone (I’m exaggerating a little) from the lower rungs of the aristocracy or modern business elite at a high-profile event. I think that’s the issue. At the very least, even if it’s not rude in the slightest, I think it’s exhausting to have to listen to someone speak like that all the time. I’m someone who loves learning about formal language and archaic usage, but it still took me some effort to summon up ‘thusly’, that now-non-existent ‘although + present subjunctive’ and ‘hitherto’. I think it’d be even worse for the person trying to process your speech, because they’d have to reach for unfamiliar or more complex structures that even they, perhaps, slip up on at times.
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Old English used to have a formal/informal forms of address as well: plural you vs. singular thou. Superiors would be addressed with the plural pronoun, while subordinates would be addressed with the singular. But eventually the singular form fell completely out of use, and ironically became perceived as more formal by association with being old-timey.
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think of it as the difference between how you speak in a formal business letter, and how you speak with your friends. now imagine someone who suddenly changes from casual conversation to business language. it’s not exactly rude, but certainly jarring.
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This distinction is still alive in certain English dialects especially in Yorkshire where we still sometimes use you and thee.
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Wasn’t that Early Modern English, though? From my short experience with Old English, it was a complete mess of a language :(.
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Weirdly, English lost it’s informal forms, probably due to the spoken language being learned by adults as a second language in situations where formal forms would have been used.
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Probably! If you have studied it at all you know more than me, who just learned that fact as interesting trivia somewhere.