51吃瓜网

While in English you tend to add words when you want to be polite — would you mind, possibly, please, thank you — Japanese has a whole other language for hierarchy, 敬語 (keigo).

日本では敬語が大切だと考える人は多いです (Nihon de wa keigo ga taisetsu da to kangaeru hito wa ōi desu, In Japan, there are many people who think honorific language is important). In fact, in a 国語に関する世論調査 (kokugo ni kan suru yoron chōsa, public opinion survey on language) put out by the government last year, to the question 「言葉遣いにどのように気を使っているか」 (Kotoba-zukai ni dono yō ni ki o tsukatte-iru ka, How do you pay attention to language use?), 82.9% of people replied, 「改まった場で、ふさわしい言葉遣いをする」 (Aratamatta ba de, fusawashii kotoba-zukai o suru, In formal settings, [I try to] use appropriate language).

That said, there are still many Japanese people who lack confidence in using 敬語 properly. In the 2022 edition of the same government survey, 59.5% of people felt that 「改まった場で、ふさわしい言葉遣いができていないことが多い」 (Aratamatta ba de, fusawashii kotoba-zukai ga dekite-inai koto ga ōi, In formal settings, [I] often cannot use the appropriate language). If you only look at people in their 30s, this number rises to 67.5%.