～ていただけませんかWon't you, Could you please (Humble request)

Most Recent Replies (10 in total)

• 

  busnea

  With lots of humble phrases you need to use お or ご before the verb. Why not here? Are there any rules to this?

• 

  nekoyama

  First off, even though いただく itself is a humble expression, the thing before いただく is something the other party does; a humble form would not be used for it.

  But it is possible to separately use a respectful お/ご with いただく too, in the same way as with ください etc. For example, ご連絡いただく or お電話いただく. It’s just not necessary in most cases because いただく already gets the point across.

  I guess this grammar point has the て form in the name too, so answers without it don’t fit for that reason too. For example it’s not possible to just add an お to something like 帰っていただく, it would have to be changed to お帰りいただく. They can’t just be added to a verb in the て form.

  Another thing to be aware of is that e.g. adding お or ご to something like 電話していただく is wrong as well because お電話する is humble and humble expressions should only be used for one’s own actions. However without the お, it’s completely fine.

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  torpedotaiyaki