Asking politely in Japanese: the request patterns JFT-Basic tests

The Conversation and Expression section is mostly about requests, offers and permission. The grammar is not difficult. Choosing the right one for the relationship is the difficulty, and that is exactly what is being tested.

The four patterns

Pattern	Use	Example
～を ください	Asking for a thing	ふくろを ください
～て ください	Asking someone to do something	ちょっと 待って ください
～ても いいですか	Asking permission for yourself	休んでも いいですか
～ましょうか	Offering to do something	お手伝いしましょうか

Nearly every request item in the exam is one of these four, or a politer variant of one.

The distinction that decides marks

The exam’s favourite trap is direction: is the action coming from you or going to you?

• ～ましょうか offers help. The reply accepts: ありがとうございます。おねがいします。
• ～てください asks for help. The reply agrees: はい、わかりました。
• どうぞ offers a thing to someone else.
• どういたしまして replies to a thank-you, and to nothing else.

A candidate who answers どういたしまして to an offer of help has produced a perfectly grammatical sentence in the wrong direction. That is the intended error.

Softening, and why it matters

Real workplace Japanese rarely uses the bare forms. It softens:

• ちょっと - a little. Softens almost anything: ちょっと よろしいですか
• ～んですが - trailing off, leaving the request implied: 早く帰りたいんですが
• すみませんが - sorry, but
• もうしわけありませんが - a more formal apology before a request

The trailing ～んですが is the one learners meet last and hear first in a real office. It is polite precisely because it does not finish the sentence.

Politeness towards whom

The situation line tells you the relationship, and the relationship decides the register:

• To a colleague you know: plain polite is fine.
• To a manager, a customer, or a stranger: the humble and honorific forms appear - お手伝いしましょうか, ご確認ください. You need to recognise these, not produce them. Keigo basics for work covers what is worth learning.

How to drill it

Requests are learned as whole phrases in situations, not as grammar rules. Take the five situations that recur in the exam and rehearse the line for each until it is reflex:

1. Leaving work before others - お先に失礼します
2. Being offered help - ありがとうございます。おねがいします
3. Asking for a short break - ちょっと 休んでも いいですか
4. Arriving late - おくれて すみません
5. Not understanding an instruction - すみません、もう一度 おねがいします

Then test them under time pressure, where recall either happens or does not: the free exam demo runs a full Conversation and Expression section on the clock, and the practice test explains each answer in your own language.