Two grammars, not one polite switch

The Korean source is a contrastive assignment on 대우표현: how Korean 높임법 and Japanese honorifics mark human relations in the verb and in the ending. Both languages do more than add a polite word. Both also split at least two jobs that English often leaves to tone or to a title: how you address the listener, and how you treat a person you are talking about.

A page that says only 'use honorifics with older people' will send a learner into the wrong verb. Age, rank, in-group and out-group, and setting all matter, and they do not weigh the same in every workplace or family.

Where Japanese cuts the system

Standard Japanese teaching materials divide 敬語 into 尊敬語, which raises the subject or the person whose action you describe; 謙譲語, which humbles the speaker's side when that side acts toward someone to be respected; and 丁寧語, the です・ます layer aimed at the listener. A speaker can humble themselves toward a customer while still using ます, or describe a superior's action with a 尊敬語 verb in a casual chat. The cuts are not optional decoration.

Dictionaries and the Agency for Cultural Affairs' honorific guidance are the references to check when a form is in doubt, not a single classroom list.

Where Korean cuts the system

Korean teaching grammars commonly distinguish hearer-oriented speech levels — for example 하십시오체 and 해요체 toward the listener — from subject honorification (raising the person who acts, often with 시) and from humble forms used for the speaker's side. A learner can say a sentence that is polite to the listener and still fail to honor the subject, or the reverse.

Titles, kinship terms, and names interact with the verb. The National Institute of the Korean Language's grammar and usage pages, and the textbook you are actually using, are safer than a borrowed Japanese rule of thumb.

What not to import from another language — and the limits of this page

European T–V distinctions (tu/vous, du/Sie) mainly choose a pronoun and a verb agreement toward the listener; they do not automatically supply a separate humble vocabulary. Many Arabic varieties mark respect in address terms, pronouns, or verb choice, but not with the same three-way Japanese cut or the Korean 시-plus-speech-level map. English mostly moves the work to titles, please, and tone.

This is a map of systems, not a script for your next meeting. Company manuals, a teacher, and a current official or textbook grammar should decide a live form. The assignment's remark that Korean and Japanese honorifics are 'more developed' than other languages is not a measurable finding and is not repeated here.

Sources

1. The CampusDown contrastive assignment on Korean 대우표현 and Japanese honorifics, used for the questions it poses, not for a ranking of languages.
2. Current teaching grammars and official usage pages: the National Institute of the Korean Language for Korean 높임법, and Japanese 敬語 guidance as published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs or a standard dictionary grammar.
3. The textbook or company manual you actually have to follow, when a workplace or course names a form.

Last updated: November 13, 2026