お～ください

お～ください is a polite request, "please do ~". The verb goes in the ます-stem between お and ください – まつ待つ becomes おまち待ちください – and the form is honorific: it raises the person you are asking. You hear it from shop staff, in station announcements and on notices.

There is no て anywhere in it: ×お待ってください, ×お待ちてください.

お～ください or ～てください

〜～てください is the everyday polite request, fine with a teacher or a colleague. お～ください is a step above it: staff to customers, a speaker to an audience, a sign to the public. Among friends it sounds stiff.

ご with Sino-Japanese nouns

A noun that names an action can go in the verb's place. Words read in on'yomi, such as れんらく連絡 and かくにん確認, take ご; native words take お. A few everyday on'yomi words take お all the same, でんわ電話 and へんじ返事 among them.

Verbs with their own honorific

A verb that has a separate honorific verb builds the request from that one instead. みる見る is the one learners trip on, since its stem is a single syllable.

• × お見ください → ご覧ください
• × お来ください → お越しください