Keigo IV – Word Beautification

“I find it really hard to remember Keigo” 

I have previously gone over sonkeigo (respectful keigo), kenjogo (humble keigo) and even covered some general rules for using keigo. But there is one large aspect of keigo that I missed out which is “bikeigo” 美敬語 or “word beautification”.

Bikeigo is something even beginner Japanese learners have probably come across with words like おかね, おちゃ, おなまえ, おさけ, ごはん, all of these basic words can be said without the お or ご at the front of the word, such as かね or ちゃ but then the word becomes harsh, crude and if said taken as being quite rude.

Bikeigo takes nouns and adds お or ご to the front to make it sound more polite. These words tend to be items that would belong to or are related to the other person, so if you were in correspondence with someone you wouldn’t say あなたのてがみ but おてがみ, or if your partner has a question you would say ごしつもん. You also wouldn’t beatify ‘foreign’ words like “ゴルフ”.

As a general rule if a noun uses onyomi (“chinese” reading/older word) you would add ご and if it has kunyomi (“Japanese” reading/modern word) you would add お. So when you have a word that uses a combination of characters like 返事 (that has the onyomi for 返) you would use ご, as opposed to 返し (which would be the kunyomi) which would use お.

Another sign that a word uses お is if it’s a word was made in Japan, which is hard unless you’re told it is, but often these will be words related to the modern era (but not foreign katakana words).

Here are some common nouns which use bikeigo: