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- "That plate is round."
"That plate is round."
Translation:そのお皿は丸いです。
13 Comments
お o- is an exalted prefix. It shows respect for the individual or object to whom it pertains. ご go- plays a similar role, being attached to a separate group of words as explained below. Both お o- and ご go- can be written as 御. お o- can be applied to nouns, na-adjectives, i-adjectives, and verbs.
Because お o is exalted, it is not used on or about the speaker. For example,
お元気げんきですか。 O-genki desu ka?
is the formal way of asking "How are you." The normal response is
元気げんきです。 Genki desu.
In the first example, person A is exalting person B by placing the exalted prefix お o- in front of the word 元気げんき genki, which refers to person B's health. In the response, person B omits the お o-prefix because he does not wish to exalt himself.
Note that お o- is usually only applied to words of Japanese origin, and most Sino-Japanese words take the honorific prefix 御ご go- instead, as in 御主人ごしゅじん master/husband. (元気げんき genki is a notable exception.)
441
Simply put, お- shows respect towards things you eat or use to eat. If you can't eat clean food, you can get sick and die. There's a limited amount of native Japanese words you use it with a neutral tone.
188
I actually want to end up writing kanji for as many words as I can that are usually written in hiragana, such as これ/之/是。