Japanese polite language and appropriate phrases for asking a person’s name

By | March 3, 2015

Japanese has a very complex system of politeness which is often claimed to be one of the reasons it’s so difficult to master, and I completely agree on this point. Depending on the relationship between you and the person/people you are speaking with, you will use variations on certain words, or even entirely different expressions. You have to take into account the listener(s) ages, experience, and job position, along with other factors when judging the appropriate phrases to use.

The system contains more than just “polite” and “non-polite” forms, instead there is whole continuum of politeness levels. And they are not necessarily applied equally to all parts of a sentence. Sometimes you may use a polite form of a noun, or a verb, or both, and of course many sentences have more than one verbs or nouns to worry about.

In this blog, I emphasize how you can improve many aspects of your Japanese ability without any sort of formal teacher, usually without even leaving your house. But polite language is one of the areas that is hardest to master this way, because without going through a great many experiences in Japan, with various real people of various relationships to you, you never really know what the best expressions to use are. Textbooks are a good place to start but become outdated quickly, and can’t describe all the subtleties required. Watching things like dramas or movies can get you closer to ‘real’ Japanese, but again you aren’t really there, so you don’t know what the characters are feeling, and there is always a chance that exaggerated language is used for effect.

One good thing about Japanese polite language is that once you memorize all the common expressions and transformations, it’s relatively easy to understand what is being said, and you might even have a feeling something of how ‘polite’ a phrase is.  It’s when you try to use these yourself that you may struggle to pick the best choice from a large set of words.

And I’m no exception – I can understand much of the polite language thrown at me (except some of the really high level stuff), but when speaking I typically don’t break out of basic forms I learned in textbooks.

If you’ve studied any Japanese at all, you’ve surely been taught about the “desu/masu” verb forms (ex: です、たべます), and consistently using these for sentence-ending verbs is a great place to start, especially when you are speaking with someone for the first time or haven’t become too close to yet. (ex: ”僕は日本語を勉強しています”)

Next there are the honorific prefixes お and ご, which I’ve written about here.

Even for for most basic polite language, you can see we now have two choices. Should one use the “desu/masu” verb forms, the honorific prefixes, or both?

Let’s take the scenario where you are trying to ask someone’s name. You’ve have may learned the following phrase in a textbook or class:

  • お名前は何ですか?  (onamae wa nan desu ka?)
  • What is your name?

At first this looks pretty polite – after all we have both です and the honorific お prefix used for “name”.

It just so happens I had a debate with a fellow blogger where I made the claim that “お名前” is most appropriate to use here, and he countered with the point that ”名前” was perfectly fine, even arguably better. In fact, he said that he had heard ”お名前” was less used, and that Japanese people felt it was awkward for foreigners to overuse polite forms like this. After some back and forth, he claimed he verified with a native speaker that it was only normal to use this word when talking to a superior or someone older than you.

I felt this wasn’t correct and it was generally safer to use ”お名前” even with those younger than yourself, though I didn’t have much more than my Japanese source against his. So I decided on posting on Oshiete Goo and was fortunate enough to get three responses, including one massively long and detailed one.

I’ll translate the best reply here (from “phj”) into English. Due to the length, I’m not going to belabor every little nuance in the translation, but rather go for conveying the poster’s overall meaning in a way that is easily understood. I’ll go paragraph by paragraph, showing my translation in bold, prefaced by the original Japanese text for those who want to practice reading comprehension.  If you want to read the original question and answers in Japanese in their original context, see here.

If you want to skip the details and get to the punch line, just jump to the summary section at the bottom.

(Note: Though “phj” is not a definitive source on this matter, the other two posters confirm some of his points, and his overall knowledge and expressive ability makes him appear very credible.)

 

 =============================================================

現代日本語の感覚では、敬語そのものが多少古臭いイメージになってきています。特に「お」は非常に簡単に使える敬語表現であるため、幼児でも使えることもあり、うまく使わないと、幼稚な言葉使いにもなりかねません。

In modern Japanese, there is a growing trend for polite language to be perceived as somewhat old-fashioned. In particular, the honorific prefix “お” is extremely easy to use, even by young children. As a result, improper use of it can make one sound childish.

聞いたというその日本人はそういう感覚も含めて、話したのではないか、と考えます。

I feel that the Japanese person you mentioned (who felt the expression “お名前” was too polite) was probably thinking along these lines.

さて、では実際に「お名前は何ですか?」という言い方が間違っているか、というとそうでもありません。ただちょっと古臭い感じはしますし、現実的には敬語としてちょっと稚拙だといえます。
(テキストに載っている日本語は1980年代までのちょっと古い語感があると思っていてください。たぶん質問者様の母国語を日本人が勉強するテキストで見れば、同じようにちょっと古い言い回しであると感じるでしょう)

Now, if we take a look at the question whether the phrase “お名前は何ですか?” is incorrect, that is clearly not the case. It’s just that this sort of language has a slight old-fashioned connotation to it, and viewed from the perspective of modern polite language can be seen as childish.

(I think it’s safe to assume that much ‘textbook Japanese’ has a characteristic feel of the 1980s or slightly before. If you looked at an English textbook used by us Japanese you’d probably feel the same way about that English.)

上司や目上、大切な取引先などに名前を聞くなら「お名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?」のほうがより丁寧になります。別のよく使われる言い方だと「お名前をお聞きしてもいいですか?」とか「お名前をいただいてもいいですか」というようになります。

When inquiring the name of an important business client, superior, or someone seen as ‘above’ you (including elders), it would be more polite to use the phrase “お名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?”. Other common expressions include “お名前をお聞きしてもいいですか?” and “お名前をいただいてもいいですか”.

「何ですか?」は間違いではないのですが、#1さんの言うように最近は避ける傾向が顕著になってきているようです。

Technically speaking, “何ですか?” is not incorrect, but as was written in another answer here there is a recent tendency to avoid that expression.

目下や年下でも、初対面のときは敬語でいいでしょう。そのほうが丁寧な印象を与えます。それでもどうしても変化をつけたいなら「お」を取って
「名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?」
「名前を聞いていもいいですか?」
ぐらいが丁寧な表現といえるでしょう。「名前を教えてください」でも失礼にはなりません。

Generally speaking, it should be appropriate to use polite language when speaking with those you are speaking with for the first time, and this would even apply to those at a lower position or younger age than the speaker. Nevertheless, if you really wanted to use an alternate expression, omitting the お and saying “名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?” or “名前を聞いていもいいですか?” would probably be still be considered as polite expressions. Even the phrase “名前を教えてください” would not be seen as rude or offending.

>仮に若い初対面の人には「名前は何?」というのは自然だとしても、「〜ですか」と使う場合は「名前」じゃなくて「お名前」も一緒に使うべきじゃないですか?

[The above is a quote from my original question]

>”Even assuming that it is natural to say “名前は何?” to a young person you are meeting for the first time, when employing the the polite phrase “ですか”, shouldn’t “お名前” instead of ”名前” be used together with it?”

日本語の敬語表現では、「お」などの接頭語をつけることと、「ですか」などの丁寧表現「おっしゃいますか」などの謙遜語はそれぞれ、独立して使うことができます。
これらの組み合わせで敬語のレベルが変化するのです。
ですから「お名前は何ですか?」のほうが「名前はなんですか?」よりも敬語のレベルとしては上になり、「お名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?」のほうがさらにレベルが高くなり、「ご尊名を賜りたいと存じます」となると、名前の尊敬表現+教えるの尊敬表現で最高レベルの敬語になるのです。まあ「ご尊名を賜りたいと存じます」なんて、どこで使うかちょっと検討がつかないぐらい、ですけどね。

In Japanese polite expressions, using suffixes such as “お” and polite or respectful terms such as “ですか” or “おっしゃいますか” can be used independently of one another.

Depending on the combination used, the resultant level of politeness changes.

Therefore, saying “お名前は何ですか?” is considered a higher politeness level than “名前はなんですか?”. In the same way, “お名前はなんとおっしゃいますか?” is even more polite, and a phrase like “ご尊名を賜りたいと存じます” can be seen as the ultimate level of politeness, utilizing several polite constructs (it uses both special verbs and nouns) .

Well, I guess this last phrase is so extreme that I cannot think of where it would be appropriate to use in real life.

日本語を話すにあたって、というより日本人と対応するに当たって、ということであれば「常に丁寧に」することを心がけたほうがよいでしょう。
それでも、外国人が日本語を間違えても怒る人のほうが少ないと思います。

When speaking Japanese, or should I say “when speaking to a Japanese person”, I recommend making an effort to always speak politely. Having said that, I think that there would be very few Japanese people who would get upset as a result of a foreigner making a mistake when speaking Japanese.

「お」というのは簡単に丁寧にする言葉ですが、だからこそ使いすぎると幼稚に見えます。言葉を話し始めた幼児は、親から「おをつけて丁寧に話しなさい」といわれるので、「お母さん」「お兄ちゃん」「お花」「おトイレ」「お仏壇」と丁寧に話そうとします。しかし、「おご飯」「お先生」と「お」をつけてはいけないものまでつけるという失敗を必ずします。

As I mentioned above, “お” is very easy to employ in order to add politeness, but for that very reason it’s overuse can make one sound childish. Children who are just learning to speak are told “おをつけて丁寧に話しなさい” by their parents, and try to speak using the お in words like “お母さん”, “お兄ちゃん”, “お花”, “おトイレ”, “お仏壇”, etc. However, as a rule, a child going through the learning process will add お to words where it is not permitted, such as “おご飯”, or “お先生”。

ですから、なんにでも「お」をつけるというのは幼児性であって丁寧語ではない、という認識があるのです。
日本語の敬語はものすごく奥深いです。正直なところでいえば、お年寄りであっても正確な敬語を使える人は相当に少なくなっています。

ですから、日本人に聞いても正しい答えが帰ってくるとは限りません。特に若い人は間違っていることさえありますので、注意してください。

Therefore, it is commonly understood that adding ”お” to words haphazardly is childish and accordingly not appropriate as polite language. The system of Japanese polite language is extremely deep and complex. To be honest, even among older Japanese people it has become increasingly difficult to find those who can use it appropriately.

For this reason, if you ask a Japanese person a question about polite language, you may not necessarily receive the correct answer. Young people in particular have been seen to make mistakes in this area, so keep that in mind.

 =============================================================

Summary

Here I’ll summarize the main points of the above quoted answer, plus the others to my Oshiete Goo post. In some cases I have added my own interpretations and opinions.

  1. Some Japanese people feel that it’s generally best to avoid the expression  ”(お)名前は何ですか?” when asking sometimes name.
  2. 名前は何ですか” is seen as more polite when the お is present (compared to “名前は何ですか”), though neither of these is technically incorrect.
  3. The term ”お名前” can be used with those at a (job/age/social) level below yours, including to those younger than you. In that case it signifies you are treating that person on the same level.
  4. More appropriate ways to ask the name of someone politely include “お名前をお聞きしてもいいですか?” and “お名前はなんとおっしゃいますか”
  5. Polite language in Japanese is extremely complex and it can be argued many Japanese people can’t use it completely correctly. In addition, the younger generation seems to be taking a different stance on polite language and may use parts of it incorrectly. Therefore, their opinion on what is “too polite” will be different across different generations.
  6. Some polite language, such as the honorific prefixes “お” and “ご”, is commonly taught to children, and over- or mis-usage of these can make one’s Japanese sound childish.
  7. Some of the phrases contained in Japanese textbooks (for foreign language learners) are likely to be out-dated. My recommendation is to use the very latest textbooks (not more than few years old), and always ask native speakers to confirm. A teacher or tutor who is native Japanese has lived in Japan recently would be a good source for information.
  8. If you aren’t sure whether to use polite language or not, it’s probably safest to err on the side of being too polite than the opposite.

After all this, I now feel very confident that the word お名前 is safe to use. However, discovering that “お名前は何ですか?” is not a common expression was quite a shock.

In any case, this was a fun exercise and I learned a great deal.

 

References

https://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/8932029.html

http://selftaughtjapanese.com/2014/03/21/japanese-honorific-prefixes-お-and-ご-o-and-go/

(Visited 4,512 times, 1 visits today)

6 thoughts on “Japanese polite language and appropriate phrases for asking a person’s name

  1. kei

    Interesting points of view on this particular case of polite Japanese. I think the level of politeness is definitely something which you need to read the air about and change to meet your situation. I typically use “お名前は何ですか?” because it’s always been can’t-miss for me. But, I also try to avoid having to ask that question directly, and usually try to introduce myself first and then receive the other person’s name. If I’m in a larger setting and miss someone’s name, I ask it in a one-on-one situation and have no issues with them misunderstanding me.

    With younger Japanese people, politeness is not too much of an issue, but usually in those cases the older person gets to dictate the politeness level. “名前は何ですか?” will not be misunderstood either.

    One other note, there’s always the underlying idea that if you’re a foreigner you don’t have to go much beyond the desu/masu form (gaijin pass). But it’s nice to be able to bring out the appropriate language for a situation and create a good impression.

    Reply
    1. locksleyu Post author

      Kei san, Thanks very much for the valuable point of view. I think it’s interesting how something as simple as asking for a person’s name can have so many different viewpoints on it (surely, other languages besides Japanese also have this).

      Also good point about trying to avoid asking this directly, and instead giving your name and hoping the other person will respond with theirs. This reminds me of how I was talking with someone about different 2rd person pronouns (あなた、etc.) and the answer there was that in many cases it’s best to omit that pronoun altogether since each 2nd person pronoun has it’s own atmosphere to it (which some may not like).

      I appreciate that because I am a foreigner I will be treated kindly with respect to politeness in Japanese, but my goal is to get as close as possible to a native speaker, which is why I pursue some topics that may first seem like a waste of time to those who feel “as long as you get your point across that’s good enough”

      Reply
      1. kei

        I appreciate you bringing this up, because I also find it an interesting topic. It spreads to more than just asking names, because the degree of politeness you use varies for each person you speak with, based on a number of variables. Language is a constantly-changing construct that is never static. That’s why I feel like it’s definitely not a waste of time to focus on the details. Especially as a foreigner, trying to be taken seriously by business people and friends alike, it’s more than just about getting your point across, as you definitely understand.

        The second-person pronoun can be difficult, and it is usually avoided by most people, because of the directness with which you are addressing someone. あなた is way too familiar, and I’ve never heard it from anyone nor have I directed it at anyone (except maybe in first year Japanese… I wish they would take that out of textbooks!). This is why I try to avoid directly asking someone’s name, unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. Then I use “お名前は何ですか?”. It’s always walking a fine line between being vague enough and not being too vague!

        Reply
  2. Dr. Abdullah Shaghi

    Reblogged this on abdullahshaghi2012 and commented:
    Japanese polite language and appropriate phrases for asking a person’s name اللغة
    اليابانية المهذبة والعبارات المناسبة لطرح اسم الشخص

    Reply
  3. narutovu207

    I really admire the extensive effort you put into researching things, in general not only this topic. Every blog post has so much precious info and your passion with the language. Keep up this wonderful work 😀
    Btw, in biz I hardly use that phrase either because お名前 is polite but 何 is not that much polite = a little bit inconsistent to me. I heard quite a few people ask me this though.

    Reply
    1. locksleyu Post author

      Thanks very much for the compliment, it’s very good to know there are people appreciate and enjoy my posts (:

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.