Gozaimasu confused

Vengeful Ronin · 27 Sep 2004

When exactly is gozaimasu supposed to be used? I've seen it used so many ways, like ohayo gozaimasu, arigato gozaimasu, etc. Arigato especially confuses me, cuz I've seen domo arigato and arigato gozaimasu. Help please!

Brooker · 27 Sep 2004

"gozaimasu" makes it more polite. So you can say...

domo
arigato
domo arigato
arigato gozaimasu
domo arigato gozaimasu

...for example. They all mean "thank-you" but the longer you make it, the more polite it is. I usually use "arigato" or "arigato gozaimasu".

Glenn · 27 Sep 2004

Like Brooker said, it makes the sentence more polite. It's also used with omedetou for "congratulations" or "happy..."

It is essentially the honorific version of aru, with it's plain for being gozaru. When you want to be super polite (usually this use is reserved for diplomatic type situations) you can use it with de as the copula, as well as the existential verb for inanimates. So, konnichiwa. Suzuki de gozaimasu is the same semantically as konnichiwa. Suzuki desu. Likewise, kuruma ga gozaimasu is the same semantically as kuruma ga arimasu.

nhk9 · 28 Sep 2004

I heard that Gozaru itself in plain form is not much used now in modern Japanese, as only the -masu (humble speech) is used.

In some instances, it might be tempting to use de-gozaimasu here and there, but one thing that is similar, yet different from de-gozaimasu is de-irasshaimasu... Normally one would say (tanaka sensei de irasshaimasu ka), and not really(tanaka sensei de gozaimasu ka)...

Glenn · 28 Sep 2004

Really? I thought that de irasshaimasu would be like de imasu, because irassharu means "to go, to come, to be/stay."

PaulTB · 28 Sep 2004

Glenn said:
Really? I thought that de irasshaimasu would be like de imasu, because irassharu means "to go, to come, to be/stay."

I think you're a bit confused.
[EDIT]
But not as confused as I was ... RETCON away!

nhk9 is saying _not_ to use 'de gozaimasu' but 'de irasshaimasu' in some circumstances because they aren't the same.

Hmm, that bit was OK.

So you don't use "tanaka sensei de gozaimasu ka" to mean "Are you Doctor Tanaka?" because you don't use humble speech when asking about somebody else.

As, I think, was that bit.

[...]

But that bit was a mess.

Now that my befudled mind slips slowly into gear I seem to remember 'de irasshaimasu ka' being used for respectful "Is ___ in?"

Glenn · 28 Sep 2004

I thought that gozaimasu was a neutral honorific. That is, it isn't a humbler or an honorer. Also, if you were asking if Dr. Tanaka is in, you wouldn't use de at all, you would just say, Tanaka sensei wa irasshaimasu ka. So I still don't really see its use as it's applicable here.

PaulTB · 28 Sep 2004

Glenn said:
I thought that gozaimasu was a neutral honorific. That is, it isn't a humbler or an honorer. Also, if you were asking if Dr. Tanaka is in, you wouldn't use de at all, you would just say, Tanaka sensei wa irasshaimasu ka. So I still don't really see its use as it's applicable here.

You're right ... about the 'de irasshaimasu' not being used for 'Is __ there?'
In fact I take back about 3/8ths of my last post
But I think you're wrong about gozaimasu being neutral.

Pox · 28 Sep 2004

my English sucks, but I try to explain.

yes, de irasshaimasuka and wa irasshaimasuka are not the same.
In this situation, de irasshaimasuka means "Are you Dr. tanaka?"
and wa irasshaimasuka means "excuse me, is Dr.Tanaka in? "

For example,
when you say to a person "Tanaka sensei de irasshaimasuka?",
it means you think that person as Dr.Tanaka.

On the other hand,
when you say to someone "Tanaka sensei wa irasshaimasuka? "
you are just asking "Is Dr.Tanaka in?"

And, what is a neutral honorific?
It means 丁寧語（ていねいご）？
If so, as for whether "gozaimasu" is a neutral honorific or not,
gozaimasu is a neutral honorific.

umm...Is my English understandable? :?

Glenn · 28 Sep 2004

What I mean by "neutral honorific" is that it's neither 謙譲語 nor 尊敬語, but it is 敬語. The reason I think this is because (aside from vaguely remembering reading it somewhere), it seems strange to me to honor some inanimate object. 本がございます means "there is a book" and is polite, but it doesn't make the book either higher in status or lower. It seems to me that no matter the standing between two people (in-group/out-group), they will both use ございます for the same thing.

At any rate the でいらっしゃいます instead of でございます thing is really new to me, and I still don't understand exactly how that works.

PaulTB · 28 Sep 2004

Glenn said:
What I mean by "neutral honorific" is that it's neither 謙譲語 nor 尊敬語, but it is 敬語. The reason I think this is because (aside from vaguely remembering reading it somewhere), it seems strange to me to honor some inanimate object. 本がございます means "there is a book" and is polite, but it doesn't make the book either higher in status or lower.

Would you ever use it to refer to somebody else's book though?
Or is it only used to refer to your own books?

Anyway neutral or not it looks like it should not be used to refer to other people because it isn't 尊敬語.

日本語Q&A;：スペースアルク

「（で）ございます」は丁寧語であることから、聞き手について用いても差し支えないように考えられますが、実際にはご指摘のようにやや不自然さが伴います。

田中さんでございますか。
cf. 田中さんでいらっしゃいますか。
お元気でございますね。
cf. お元気でいらっしゃいますね。

Vengeful Ronin · 29 Sep 2004

Well, some of this has been enlightening, and some of it has been confusing. Thankee for the info, and yes Pox, your English was understandable.

*looks back at last several posts*

Geez, I wish I could type hiragana characters....my comp sucks.

PaulTB · 29 Sep 2004

Vengeful Ronin said:
Geez, I wish I could type hiragana characters....my comp sucks.

What OS and Browser are you using?

Glenn · 29 Sep 2004

PaulTB said:
Would you ever use it to refer to somebody else's book though?
Or is it only used to refer to your own books?

I meant that it could be used for anybody's books.

PaulTB said:
Anyway neutral or not it looks like it should not be used to refer to other people because it isn't 尊敬語.

「（で）ございます」は丁寧語であることから、聞き手について用いても差し支えないように考えられますが、実際にはご指摘のようにやや不自然さが伴います。

田中さんでございますか。
cf. 田中さんでいらっしゃいますか。
お元気でございますね。
cf. お元気でいらっしゃいますね。

Well, I guess that's that, then. That explanation is good enough for me, as it answers my question.

Scrivener · 29 Sep 2004

My understanding is that "gozaimasu" is "formal", not honoring someone or humbling yourself. It's "posh".

I think of "de irasshaimasu ka" as honoring the person you are asking, while "de gozaimasu ka" shows that you are on your best behavior in a formal situation, but you aren't actually honoring the person specifically.

You have that phenomenon of "zaamasu baba" in comics meaning a "narikin" rich upstart woman who uses "gozaimasu" too much to show how posh she is, and such a person really isn't honoring the person they are talking to - quite the opposite really!

"de irassharu" is only used for people, also.

nhk9 · 29 Sep 2004

Scrivener said:
My understanding is that "gozaimasu" is "formal", not honoring someone or humbling yourself. It's "posh".

I think of "de irasshaimasu ka" as honoring the person you are asking, while "de gozaimasu ka" shows that you are on your best behavior in a formal situation, but you aren't actually honoring the person specifically.

I think Scrivener has got it well written there... just think of de gozaimasu as an even more "humble" way of speaking, even more humble than just only using the -masu form teinei-go. I don't think in most circumstances that de-gozaimasu would serve as either sonkei-go or kenjou-go...

de-irasshaimasu is a sonkei-go used to refer someone you want to pay respect to... You could use it when you are face to face with a sensei, asking "are you tanaka sensei" (tanaka sensei de irasshaimasu ka)... or also refering to a sensei when talking to third person...

Click to expand...

Glenn · 30 Sep 2004

Yeah, the politeness level makes sense. I'm just having a hard time not equating でいらっしゃいます with でいる, because it just seems like they should be paired. Everything else is no problem, though.

Vengeful Ronin · 30 Sep 2004

Oh....*thinks he gets it now*
And I have an eMac, with AOl/Internet Explorer browsers

PaulTB · 30 Sep 2004

Vengeful Ronin said:
Oh....*thinks he gets it now*
And I have an eMac, with AOl/Internet Explorer browsers

Ah. In which case you certainly _should_ be able to enter hiragana, but I'm not the best one to tell you how.

You probably need to google 'kotoeri' though.

Vengeful Ronin · 1 Oct 2004

Oh, okay, arigato! (methinks I'll just say that most of the time)

Gozaimasu *confused*

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