てごらん (Te goran) Meaning Japanese Grammar - Please Try To Do

The forms of kindness have different levels and the use of the various expressions depends on our interlocutor and on the context. The imperative form 見(み)なさい in its variants of the Keigo:

• ご覧(らん)なさい: it is a light imperative used towards peers, not towards superiors

• ご覧(らん)下(くだ)さい: is a form that expresses more courtesy than the use of なさい, but is not recommended towards superiors

• ご覧(らん)下(くだ)さいませ or ご覧(らん)になって下(くだ)さい: are the appropriate forms towards 上(じょう)司(し) one's superior, one's boss or towards 目(め)上(うえ)の人(ひと) superiors, senior persons, towards customers and in formal contexts.

  During an exhibition 展(てん)示(じ)会(かい) the staff person could say to visitors:

In a formal business email, we can write:

An upper level of the same structure using Keigo is ご覧(らん)頂(いただく)く. We have studied in another post the various forms of the verb receive: もらう towards peers, in the uchi context, and いただく in the soto context, towards superiors or people one does not know.

Here is a sentence of common use in a conversation using Honorific Language. 「ご覧(らん)になられましたか？。」 In this sentence we find 二(に)重(じゅう)敬(けい)語(ご) the double Keigo represented by:

• ご覧(らん)になる honorific form of 見(み)る see, look

• なられる: passive form of なる become with honorific use

  The intention is to create an extremely polite expression to ask: Did you have a look?

  It is not actually used and the correct forms are:

• 「ご覧(らん)になりましたか」or

• 「ご覧(らん)いただけましたか」