In short

敬語 keigo is not one politeness dial but three independent axes: 丁寧語 teineigo is polite toward the person you are talking to (です／ます), 尊敬語 sonkeigo raises the person you are talking about, and 謙譲語 kenjōgo lowers yourself to the same effect. This lesson owns the first two. The single decision that drives all of them is ウチ／ソト uchi / soto - whether the person belongs to your group or the other side.

The rule

Step 1 - Learn the three axes as separate switches, not as levels.

They stack, and a single sentence can use two of them at once. Ask two different questions:

• Who am I speaking to? -> that sets 丁寧語: ます／です for anyone not an intimate, plain form for friends and family.
• Who am I speaking about? -> that sets 尊敬語 (the subject is someone above me) or 謙譲語 (the subject is me or my group).

So 先生がいらっしゃいます Sensei ga irasshaimasu is 尊敬語 (the teacher is raised) plus 丁寧語 (ます, for the listener). If a friend asked, you would say 先生がいらっしゃる - still honorific, no longer polite. Keigo is never “more or less”; it is “which axis”.

Step 2 - ウチ／ソト decides which axis, and it moves.

Your ウチ is your in-group at that moment: your company, your family, your team. Everyone else is ソト. You raise ソト people and flatten ウチ people - including yourself and your own boss.

Inside the company, your section chief is above you, so you use 尊敬語 about him: 部長はもうお帰りになりました。 Buchō wa mō okaeri ni narimashita. Put a customer on the phone and the boundary redraws: the customer is now ソト, the boss has become ウチ, and the same man loses his title, his honorific suffix and his 尊敬語 - 田中はもう帰りました。 Tanaka wa mō kaerimashita. Saying ×田中部長はお帰りになりました to a customer is a genuine social error, not a stylistic one. This one rule explains more real keigo than any verb list.

Step 3 - 丁寧語: です／ます is a register, not a beginner’s crutch.

You have used ます since lesson 7. Reframe it: it is the listener axis, and it has a higher gear built on ございます gozaimasu (the super-polite あります) and でございます de gozaimasu (the super-polite です).

• こちらが会議室でございます。 - shops, hotels, announcements, receptions.
• 〜ております te orimasu replaces 〜ています when the subject is you or your group: 田中は外出しております。(おる is properly 謙譲語 and belongs to lesson 57; here just note that it is the formal 〜ています.)
• よろしいですか yoroshii desu ka is the polite いいですか, and いかがですか ikaga desu ka the polite どうですか.

Step 4 - 美化語: the お／ご that only beautifies.

Some お／ご raise nobody - they simply make the word itself refined: お茶, お金, ご飯, お土産. This is 美化語 bikago, and it is the safest keigo you own. The default rule is etymological:

• 和語 (native Japanese reading, kun-yomi) takes お: お名前, お手紙, お考え, お忙しい.
• 漢語 (Sino-Japanese, on-yomi) takes ご: ご住所, ご意見, ご連絡, ご家族, ご利用.

The exceptions are frequent and must be memorised as vocabulary: お電話, お食事, お時間, お返事, お料理, お礼, お元気 are 漢語 that take お anyway. And there is a ceiling - loanwords take neither (×おコーヒー, ×おビール), and piling お onto everything you own sounds affected rather than polite. Attach it to the listener’s things (お名前, ご住所) and to the short fixed list of beautified everyday nouns; leave your own things bare.

Step 5 - 尊敬語, route 1: suppletive verbs (learn these as vocabulary).

The commonest verbs do not take a frame - they are replaced outright. Four of them (いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, なさる, くださる), together with the 丁寧語 verb ござる, belong to one irregular 五段 sub-class (dictionaries label it the -aru special class) whose ます-form ends in -い, not -り: いらっしゃいます, おっしゃいます, なさいます, くださいます, ございます. Writing ×いらっしゃります is the tell of a learner.

Step 6 - 尊敬語, route 2: the productive frames お／ご + stem.

For any verb without a suppletive form, build one:

• お + ます-stem + になる (or ご + Sino-noun + になる) - the standard honorific: 読む -> お読みになる, 使う -> お使いになる, 利用する -> ご利用になる.
• お + ます-stem + ください (or ご + Sino-noun + ください) - the honorific request: お待ちください, お掛けください, ご記入ください, ご確認ください. This is the polite ceiling of 〜てください from lesson 13.

Two limits: the frame needs a stem of at least two morae, so 見る (stem み) and 寝る (stem ね) are out - use ご覧になる and お休みになる instead; and a verb that already has a suppletive form uses it (×お食べになる -> 召し上がる).

Step 7 - 尊敬語, route 3: the 〜（ら）れる honorific.

This is the same morphology as the passive in lesson 45 - 書かれる, 食べられる, 来られる, される - used with a completely different meaning: it simply raises the subject. 社長が来られました。 Shachō ga koraremashita. (“The president has arrived.”)

It is the lightest honorific: neutral, unfussy, ubiquitous in offices and newspapers, and it applies to every verb by regular rule, so on a plain verb it never produces a 二重敬語 - only stacking it on another honorific does (×お読みになられる, see Common mistakes). Its cost is ambiguity. Disambiguate by the shape of the clause: a passive normally has an agent in に and often a surviving を (先生に注意されました = passive), while an honorific has a socially superior subject and no agent (先生が注意されました = honorific, “the teacher gave a warning”). If a sentence would be genuinely unclear, switch to お〜になる, which can only be honorific.

Step 8 - Nouns and adjectives get raised too. お名前, ご住所, ご意見, ご家族, ご出身; お元気, お忙しい, ご立派. The set opener お忙しいところ、失礼します (“sorry to disturb you when you are busy”) is worth learning whole.

Forms & patterns

The three axes at a glance:

Suppletive 尊敬語 verbs - the core list:

The two productive frames, and the light honorific:

お or ご? The 和語／漢語 rule:

The register ladder for 丁寧語:

Service Japanese, as receptive input - you will hear these long before you need to produce them: いらっしゃいませ (welcome), 少々お待ちください (one moment please), かしこまりました (certainly), 恐れ入ります (I’m much obliged / excuse me), こちらでよろしいでしょうか (will this be all right?).

Examples

Common mistakes

• 社長がお読みになられました。 (Shachō ga oyomi ni nararemashita.) -> 社長がお読みになりました。 (Shachō ga oyomi ni narimashita.) - 二重敬語: お〜になる is already honorific, so adding 〜れる honours the same act twice. Pick one route. Same for ×おっしゃられる -> おっしゃいました, ×ご覧になられる -> ご覧になりました.
• お待ちしてください。 (Omachi shite kudasai.) -> お待ちください。 (Omachi kudasai.) - お＋stem＋する is the humble frame (lesson 57), so this orders the listener to humble themselves. The honorific request drops して entirely.
• 私は明日そちらにいらっしゃいます。 (Watashi wa ashita sochira ni irasshaimasu.) -> 私は明日そちらへ行きます。 (Watashi wa ashita sochira e ikimasu.) - 尊敬語 raises someone else. Applied to yourself it is self-flattery; use plain polite ます, or the humble 参ります from the next lesson.
• お住所をお願いします。 (Ojūsho o onegai shimasu.) -> ご住所をお願いします。 (Gojūsho o onegai shimasu.) - 住所 is 漢語 (on-yomi), so it takes ご. Compare 和語 お名前.
• おコーヒーはいかがですか。 (Okōhī wa ikaga desu ka.) -> コーヒーはいかがですか。 (Kōhī wa ikaga desu ka.) - 美化語 does not extend to katakana loanwords. Over-beautification reads as parody, not respect.

Tips

• Ask “who is the subject?” before you ask “how polite?” If the subject is the other person, reach for 尊敬語; if it is you, 謙譲語; the ます at the end is a separate decision about your listener. Learners who treat keigo as one dial produce ×私はいらっしゃいます; learners who ask about the subject never do.
• 〜（ら）れる is the safe default at work. It is regular, applies to any verb, sounds unfussy, and cannot become 二重敬語 as long as you add it to the plain verb, not to a form that is already honorific. Reserve the full お〜になる for customers, and remember it is the only route that is unambiguous when a passive reading is also possible.
• The five -います verbs are the payoff. いらっしゃいます, おっしゃいます, なさいます, くださいます, ございます - one irregular pattern covers the five most frequent keigo verbs in the language (the first four are 尊敬語; ございます is 丁寧語, but it inflects with them). Drill them as a set.
• A customer flips the whole board. The moment an outsider is listening, your own boss stops being 目上 and becomes ウチ: no 部長, no さん, no 尊敬語. This is the part English has no instinct for, and the part that Japanese listeners notice first.