お～になる

The structure お～になる is the honorific form of verbs (そんけいご尊敬語) used to show respect when referring to the actions of someone of higher status (e.g., a superior, customer, or someone you wish to show respect to). It indicates that the speaker is elevating the subject's action.

Note: Honorifics are used to elevate the subject of the sentence. This is why you do not use them to refer to your own actions (e.g., it is inappropriate to say わたくし私がいきます行きます using いらっしゃいます).

Besides this honorific form, the passive form is also used to express respect:

However, out of these two sentences, the first one is more polite as it uses a longer honorific expression.

Sino-Japanese words use ご～ instead of お～. This primarily concerns する verbs.

• れんらく連絡する → ご連絡になる

Some words are however an exception to this rule:

• べんきょう勉強する → お勉強になる
• でんわ電話する → お電話になる
• さんぽ散歩する → お散歩になる

Irregular respectful verbs

The following verbs don't use this structure and they have a specific honorific form:

Please note that the following honorific verbs have irregular conjugations for their formal non-past and imperative forms: