2.1 The Three Keigo Categories: Sonkeigo, Kenjougo, Teineigo

2.1 The Three Keigo Categories: Sonkeigo, Kenjougo, Teineigo

Quick Answer: Keigo (敬語, けいご) is the Japanese honorific system that encodes social distance, hierarchy, and in-group/out-group relationships into verb choice and prefixes. The BJT operationally recognizes three categories — 尊敬語 (sonkeigo, respectful), 謙譲語 (kenjougo, humble), and 丁寧語 (teineigo, polite). Master which category a verb belongs to before you touch any other BJT topic; keigo is tested in all three exam parts.

What Is Keigo?

Keigo (敬語) — literally "honorific language" — is the layer of Japanese grammar that encodes the speaker's relationship to the subject of a sentence and to the listener. In a business setting, choosing the wrong category is not a stylistic slip; it is a social error that can scuttle a negotiation or a job interview. The BJT treats keigo as the foundation of every other communication skill it measures, which is why this chapter sits before email, telephone, and meeting chapters in the guide.

Keigo answers two orthogonal questions in every utterance:

1. Whose action is being described? — the subject of the verb
2. To whom am I speaking? — the listener

The combination of those two answers, filtered through the in-group (内, うち) vs out-group (外, そと) distinction, determines the correct category.

The Three Categories at a Glance

A useful mental hook: sonkeigo raises the actor, kenjougo lowers the speaker, teineigo softens the sentence. Sonkeigo and kenjougo are directional — they point at someone — while teineigo is a uniform baseline that can stack on top of the other two.

The Modern 5-Class MOJ Classification

Japan's Ministry of Justice and modern reference grammars (Bunkachou 2007) recognize a finer five-class split:

1. 尊敬語 (sonkeigo) — respectful
2. 謙譲語I (kenjougo I) — humble toward the receiver of the action
3. 謙譲語II / 丁重語 (teichougo) — humble toward the listener without raising an action object
4. 丁寧語 (teineigo) — polite
5. 美化語 (bikago) — beautifying prefixes (お茶, ご飯) that are not strictly honorific

The BJT, however, operationally uses the three-category split (sonkeigo, kenjougo, teineigo). You should be aware that 丁重語 exists — Section 2.3 covers it because the BJT tests the distinction between 謙譲語I and 謙譲語II in the 表現読解 (expression reading) section — but for instant classification on listening items, the three-way model is the working tool.

The Decision Rule: Subject, Listener, In-Group vs Out-Group

When a verb appears on the BJT, run this decision tree in order:

1. Identify the subject. Is the actor the customer/boss/senior (out-group or superior), or is the actor the speaker/the speaker's in-group (self, colleague, subordinate when speaking to an outsider)?
2. Identify the listener. Is the listener an outsider or a superior?
3. Apply the rule:
   • Subject = other party's action → sonkeigo
   • Subject = speaker's own action that affects the listener → kenjougo
   • Subject = speaker's own action with no direction toward the listener, but the listener is still a superior/outsider → teineigo (or 丁重語 in the 5-class model)
4. Check the in-group/out-group boundary. When you speak to a customer about your own boss, your boss is in-group — you do NOT use sonkeigo for your own boss in front of the customer. This is the 内/外 (uchi/soto) distinction and it is heavily tested.

Why This Matters on the BJT

Keigo appears in every part of the exam:

• Part 1 Section 2 (発言聴解 — Utterance Listening): You hear a single utterance and must pick the situation it fits. Honorific verb choice is often the only clue distinguishing, e.g., a shop clerk addressing a customer vs a colleague addressing a boss.
• Part 2 Section 2 (表現読解 — Expression Reading): You read a short text (email, memo, announcement) and judge whether the keigo is appropriate. Inappropriate sonkeigo for one's own action is the classic wrong-answer pattern.
• Part 3 (listening across role-plays and dialogues): Instant parsing of honorific suppletive verbs (いらっしゃる, 参る, 申し上げる) is required to follow who is doing what to whom.

Common Traps

• Using sonkeigo for one's own actions: ×「私が参られます」(wrong — 参る is humble; you cannot elevate yourself). The correct form is 私が参ります (humble) or simply 行きます (plain teineigo).
• Using kenjougo to describe the customer's action: ×「お客様が参ります」(wrong — you do not humble the customer). The correct form is お客様がいらっしゃいます (sonkeigo).
• Mixing up お/ご + sonkeigo vs お/ご + kenjougo: お/ご attaches to both, but the verb that follows determines the category. お読みする (kenjougo — I read for you) vs お読みになる (sonkeigo — you read).
• Forgetting the 内/外 flip: When speaking to a customer, your own boss is in-group — use plain forms for your boss, not sonkeigo.

Mini Dialogue

Customer: 「社長はいらっしゃいますか。」 Receptionist (in-group to the customer, but the boss is in-group to the receptionist): 「社長はただいま席を外しております。」

The customer correctly uses いらっしゃいます (sonkeigo for the boss from the customer's perspective). The receptionist does NOT use sonkeigo for her own boss in front of an outsider — she uses おります (humble for the boss's state, since the boss is in-group from her view, and she is humbling herself to the customer). Note the asymmetry: the same person (社長) takes sonkeigo from the customer and humble-from-receptionist from the staff.