Japanese Honorific O and Go Prefixes: Which Words Take Which and Why

The origin rule: o for native words, go for Chinese ones

Japanese vocabulary has two large layers. Native words, wago, are the ones with kun readings: namae, shigoto, kuni, heya, kimochi. Words borrowed from Chinese, kango, use on readings and are often two-kanji compounds: kazoku, jūsho, renraku, setsumei, kyōryoku. The prefix follows the layer. Native words take o, written お; Chinese-origin words take go, written ご. Both are usually spelled with the same kanji, 御, but in modern text you will almost always see the kana.

A quick test for word origin is the reading. If the word sounds like a two-syllable compound with on readings, such as ren-raku or kyō-ryoku, expect go. If it sounds like ordinary spoken Japanese, such as namae or tegami, expect o. This test is not perfect, but it sends you to the right prefix for most of the words you will need in a service or office setting.

The exceptions that break the origin rule

A handful of Sino-Japanese words take o rather than go because they entered daily life so long ago that they feel native. The ones you will meet constantly are o-denwa (telephone), o-ryōri (cooking), o-benkyō (study), o-shokuji (meal), o-jikan (time), o-henji (reply), o-kyaku (customer) and o-sōji (cleaning). Say go-denwa and a Japanese listener will pause. A few words accept both: go-henji and o-henji are both heard, go-hon and o-hon are not, but hon simply takes neither in most speech.

Loanwords written in katakana take no prefix at all in standard Japanese. Nobody says o-kōhī or go-pasokon. The exception is o-toire and o-bīru, which some older speakers use, and which you will hear in restaurants, but a learner is safest leaving all katakana words bare. When a service worker wants to be polite about a loanword, they change the sentence around it rather than the noun.

Respect versus beautification: two jobs, one prefix

The same prefix does two different things, and telling them apart solves most of the confusion. Respect use, sonkei, attaches to things that belong to or come from the listener or a respected person: their name, family, address, opinion, work, health. It points away from the speaker, so it disappears when the item is yours. You ask about someone's go-iken, their opinion, but you offer your own iken. You praise a colleague's o-shigoto, but you describe your own shigoto.

Beautification use, bika, changes the tone of the word itself rather than pointing at anyone. O-cha is simply the polite, normal word for tea; the o is not about whose tea it is. The same is true of o-kane, o-sake, o-yu (hot water), o-kome (rice), o-hana (flowers), o-kashi (sweets), o-tearai (toilet) and o-sara (plate). Women have traditionally used beautification forms more, and some, such as o-sakana or o-yasai, still sound feminine or refined, but the core set is used by everyone.

Common nouns and their prefixes

The table below lists the words a learner meets most in shops, offices and hotels, with the prefix that is actually used. The Note column tells you which job the prefix does, so you know whether it stays on your own things.

Note that go-chūmon and go-yoyaku are what staff say to you, and what you say when referring to the customer's or the other party's booking. When you make your own booking you say yoyaku shitai n desu ga, without go, unless you are in a very formal exchange where the whole sentence is humble.

Adjectives and verbs that take the prefix

A limited set of adjectives take o or go, almost always when they describe the listener or a respected person. I-adjectives take o: o-isogashii (busy), o-wakai (young), o-hayai (early, as in the greeting), o-utsukushii (beautiful, formal). Na-adjectives split by origin: o-genki (well), o-hima (free), o-suki (like) take o; go-shinsetsu (kind), go-rippa (splendid), go-nesshin (keen) take go. These forms are common in set expressions: o-isogashii tokoro, while you are busy; o-genki desu ka, how are you; go-shinsetsu ni, kindly.

The prefix also opens the door to honorific verb patterns, o plus the masu stem plus ni naru for respect and o plus the stem plus suru for humility. O-kaki ni narimasu ka, will you write; o-mochi shimasu, I will carry it. Sino-Japanese verbal nouns take go the same way: go-setsumei shimasu, I will explain; go-riyō kudasai, please use it. A separate post treats those verb patterns in full; here the point is that the o and go you learn for nouns are the same prefixes, obeying the same origin rule.

Words that never take a prefix

Knowing where the prefix does not go is half the skill. The list below covers the categories that stay bare no matter how polite the situation. Rather than adding a prefix, make the surrounding verb polite, or add a softener such as yoroshikereba or sumimasen ga.

• Katakana loanwords: kōhī, pasokon, meeru, pen, terebi
• Your own name, family, opinion and work in respect contexts: namae, kazoku, iken, shigoto
• Animals, most plants and natural features: inu, neko, yama, kawa (o-hana for flowers is the main exception)
• Long Sino-Japanese compounds of three or more kanji: kenkō shindan, jūmin hyō
• Negative or unpleasant words: byōki, jiko, shakkin (o-shikko and o-naka are fused exceptions, not a pattern)
• Words that are already honorific: sensei, sama, kata (as in kono kata, this person)

The one bare-word trap that catches almost everyone is namae. Because you hear o-namae from every clerk, it starts to feel like the word itself. It is not. Watashi no namae wa Tanaka desu is correct; watashi no o-namae is wrong.

Common mistakes with o and go

The most frequent mistake is prefixing your own things. Watashi no go-kazoku, watashi no o-shigoto and watashi no o-namae all sound as if you are honouring yourself, which in Japanese reads as either comic or arrogant. The fix is a habit: any time watashi no or a humble verb is in the sentence, drop respect prefixes from your own nouns.

The second mistake is over-prefixing everything to seem polite. Learners who have heard shop staff pile up o and go copy the density into ordinary conversation, producing o-kōhī o o-nomi ni narimasu ka to a friend. Match the level of the person you are talking to. The third mistake is the wrong prefix on a Sino-Japanese word that takes o, go-denwa and go-ryōri being the commonest. The fourth is prefixing a word that is already polite, o-sensei or go-sama. And the last is dropping beautification o from o-cha, o-kane and o-tearai in an attempt to sound casual, which sounds rough rather than relaxed.