One small step for man and all that.
Today I started answering the telephone using keigo (the ultra polite and highly confusing register of the Japanese language - the English language has no equivalent - it's like a language within a language).
I've a long way to go before I sound as polished as an NTT Docomo receptionist, but one small step all the same my friends, one small step.
Incidentally, the title of my post means "Will I get him to call you back?" If we said the same sentence in one of the "normal" registers of Japanese, only two of the words would be the same.
Keigo embodies both the inherent beauty and the difficulty of the Japanese language. It has to be one of the most sophisticated communication structures of all languages. And after all these years, I'm finally becoming confident enough to start using it.
Posted by Setsunai at April 6, 2006 7:33 PMMany years ago I bought a great book from Kinokuniya on keigo. The lessons were based around a chinese guy (Rin-san?) working at a Japanese company in the sales department. He'd ritually screw up his keigo and annoy the clients, then his boss would step in and educate both him and the reader as to the proper way of doing things.
My favorite phrase was "Goyouken wo uketemawarimashou ka?" ("can I help instead?"). Very useful whenever a colleague was not around to take a call. That book saved me. I'll see if I can dig it out & post the title.
You can add a "no" and a "mo" in your phrase to further up the politeness:
Orikaeshi no denwa sasete itadaitemo yoroshii deshou ka?
Posted by: Redux at April 8, 2006 1:32 PM | Permalink to CommentThanks for that. I'd like to know the name of the book if you do find it.
Posted by: Setsunai at April 11, 2006 9:06 PM | Permalink to Comment