DESIGER

Hey! Whats That お Doing There Part 1

Fairly early on in your adventures with Japanese, youll learn some set phrases like:

o-genki desu ka? (How are you?)

o-shigoto wa nan desu ka? (Whats your job?)

Usually I teach that the �o� in o-genki desu ka makes the question more polite � but that�s not the whole story. That little o is pretty magic.



Honorific o (or sometimes go) is basically used for three things:

1) Being polite about someone else

Its good to be more polite about other people than you are about yourself, right?

So when youre speaking about someone else, there are certain words that get an o (or go) on the front:

o-shigoto     ???     (your honourable job)

go-kazoku     ???     (your wonderful family)

o-namae wa?     ?????     (What is your esteemed name?)

o-genki desu ka     ???????     (Are you [person I respect] well?)

When you talk about yourself, however, dont use o or go: just namae, genki, kazoku, shigoto.

You cant talk about your own o-namae or go-kazoku!

2) Sounding more polite generally

Adding o to a word can make your speech sound more polished. Words that don�t necessarily need o, but often get it, include:

sushi / o-sushi
kome / o-kome
sake / o-sake

With these words, either way is fine. If youre trying to speak politely you might want to use the o version.

Unlike the first lot, this kind of o isn�t anything to do with whose sushi or sake it is. It just sounds a bit nicer if you stick the o on there. Like you�re respecting the rice.

3) Some words just always have it

So, some words need o/go only when youre talking about someone else. Others can either have it or not.

Theres a third category, too - words where the o/go has been subsumed into the word completely, and cant really be detached:

Gohan (??, meal/cooked rice) always needs go - theres no unadorned word "han" for rice (although there presumably was at some point.)

O-cha (??, tea) pretty much always gets o, as does o-kane (??, money). Just cha or kane sounds a bit rough.

Words like this dont really belong to the "o/go is polite" rule of thumb. Its best just to learn them as whole words.

O or go?

Generally, words of Chinese origin get go, while native Japanese words get o. There are of course some exceptions, though...

But more on that next time!

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