Shall I help you?
Oct. 3rd, 2010 07:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranAnother of the real joys of Japanese is the way you can inflect the language depend on the required level of politeness.
To ask if you can help an intimate friend or someone socially lower than you (a child or a subordinate for example), you can say:
Tetsudatte agemasho ka?
To show more respect (say you were addressing a stranger), you can make it:
Tetsudaimasho ka?
For even more politeness, you can use:
O-tetsudai shimasho ka?
For super politeness, you can use:
Tetsudatte sashiagemasho ka?
And then, since all of these are defined by standard rules, there is also the theoretical possibility of:
O-tetsudai itashimasho ka? (I'm not even sure if this is really ever used, except perhaps for comic effect.)
This is, incidentally, one of those vital phrases that never seems to appear in phrasebooks. It's a great way to get to meet people and to start communicating.
To ask if you can help an intimate friend or someone socially lower than you (a child or a subordinate for example), you can say:
Tetsudatte agemasho ka?
To show more respect (say you were addressing a stranger), you can make it:
Tetsudaimasho ka?
For even more politeness, you can use:
O-tetsudai shimasho ka?
For super politeness, you can use:
Tetsudatte sashiagemasho ka?
And then, since all of these are defined by standard rules, there is also the theoretical possibility of:
O-tetsudai itashimasho ka? (I'm not even sure if this is really ever used, except perhaps for comic effect.)
This is, incidentally, one of those vital phrases that never seems to appear in phrasebooks. It's a great way to get to meet people and to start communicating.
