Japanese language tip: When to use honorific prefixes “o” and “go”
In Japanese conversation, you will often hear words beginning with “go” or “o”, which share the same kanji “御”, but are often written in hiragana.
“go” is the onyomi pronunciation, and “o” is the kunyomi, so they generally serve as honorific prefixes to onyomi and kunyomi words respectively.
For example, you might hear “gohoukokuご報告” (onyomi, meaning “report”) and “otoiawaseお問い合わせ” (kunyomi, meaning “enquiry”).
In these examples, the word being qualified generally refers to something associated with a second or third party, not the speaker. Hence there is no need to say “anata noあなたの” (your) or “kare no彼の” (his); you simply say “otoiawaseお問い合わせ” and it is understood that it means “your enquiry” or “his enquiry”, depending on the context. In referring to your own enquiry, you would drop the prefix.
A prefixed word is sometimes translated, somewhat clumsily, as “your honorable enquiry”, because the prefix shows respect toward the person being spoken to. In most cases, a translator can drop the word “honorable” without serious consequences.
Note that the use of these prefixes is not always mandatory — one could quite easily say “toiawase問い合わせ” without being rude, say in an internal business meeting, but in a customer service…
