When you first meet somebody, polite language is, on the whole, the most
commonly used form of Japanese. Children may differ, and I understand that not
_everyone_ will use plain form, but regardless a majority of people do.

At some point in a friendship, inevitably friends will switch to plain form.
Again, different people are comfortable to do this at different times, but
**how do people make the transition from polite to plain language?** Do they
just start using it, and the other person just plays along? Is it a gradual
thing, where you switch in and out of plain form and then just stick to it
after a while after using it more and more?

Personal experiences and examples are welcomed
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2015-06-17T14:12:40.687
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culture spoken-language formality
How do Japanese speakers transition from polite to plain form amongst friends?
In my personal experience, the transition from polite to plain form is done
spontaneously, specifically if you are of the same age level or same position
(at work).

A month or two after your introduction, you may switch to plain form **if
there are no inhibitions from your part of any kind** , or you have done a
milestone together (project closure, etc) . Otherwise, it is best to stick to
polite form.

On the other hand though, it would be best if we err in the side of caution
when we use plain form to people superior to our position (at work), or
elderly people. In this case, I usually apply the polite form.
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2015-06-17T14:20:03.240
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Whenever it feels right. This is probably not the answer you were looking for,
so here are my observations:

  * If it's anything work related, or official, you stick to the polite language, no matter how well you know the person you are talking to.
  * As soon as you are doing something else in your private life, let's say having a beer together, it's okay to use the plain language. If the person is uncomfortable with that, he will most likely tell you.
  * People under 30 are more likely to switch to plain language when talking to someone of a similar age, even if they barely know each other.
  * Japanese are less likely to talk politely to you if you are a foreigner, because they want to make sure that you understand them.
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In my experience, the nature of the relationship and the nature of the
communication are both important for knowing when/how to use the plain form
and to knowing what the use of plain form signals.

In **written** _workplace_ communication, I never see plain form (I work at a
university).

In **written** _personal_ communications (things like Facebook or IM), I
rarely see ~ます forms. Only in the most formal invitations do these crop up.

In **verbal** _workplace_ communication, I've seen quite large variance among
language users. Some users almost invariably use the polite forms; other users
use plain form except when giving a formal communication (e.g., say starting a
meeting or being the person who is handling the meeting point). One parameter
that affects this is the role/position one has in the organization and
meeting.

Consequently, I am much more careful to use polite forms in 運営委員会 than when I
am talking to my own students. Though note, that the use of polite / plain is
almost universally mixed in the communication I encounter. Some professors
insist on polite forms from their students and use 僕 to refer themselves;
others don't care whether students give them polite forms or not.

My advisor when I came to Japan generally used the plain form when talking to
me, but the first sentence was often in a polite form. I generally but not
universally use the plain form when talking to my students. Some professors
(who sound refined when they do it well) stick to the polite form for almost
all communications in person.

In verbal communication among friends, I would say that to close friends, I
rarely use ます forms (です remains however in some contexts). To people
introduced to me by friends, I will generally do the introduction in polite
forms and quickly transition to plain forms for most communication if that's
the pattern they are talking with my friends in. To people I meet through
other means, I will start with ます constructions and stick with them until I
feel comfortable around the person.

* * *

I might suggest the following equation where P(x) is the probability I use a
ます construction:

P(x) = A x [Their age - my age ] - B x [length of time I've known them] + C x
[business relationship > government office > acquaintance [~0] > friend of
friends [< 0] > direct friend relationship [<< 0] ] - E x [depth into the
conversation/message] + F x [written > 0 | spoken < 0]

Where A, B, C, D, E, and F are positive constants that vary somewhat by the
individual.

We could call it the "virial politeness law" (Cf.
<http://facstaff.cbu.edu/rprice/lectures/realgas.html>)
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I think there's a lot of variation between speakers. Even as a foreigner at a
university, I have met various types of speakers:

  * never use teineigo at all, even though I'm clearly older
  * people who use keigo for a few minutes and switch when I reply in casual form (most common)
  * people who use keigo for weeks, and say it's uncomfortable to use casual form because I am older; then switch once we are actually friends
  * people who use keigo forever even with close friends, simply because the friend is a staff member at the university

More traditional circles like taiko, martial arts etc. will use a lot of
teineigo and mostly still conform to traditional sempai/kouhai structure.

However, other clubs such as my chorus group, while having a sempai/kouhai
structure and showing a lot of respect for it, are looser. Some kouhai aren't
even using teineigo here. Some sempai will use teineigo all the time, even
when addressing kouhai - it's a bit of personal preference. In particular, for
anything authoritative (e.g. meetings, orders, teaching), using polite form
seems to be more appropriate than causal. In keeping with that, written form
is much more likely to use teineigo.

I rarely hear 'baribari keigo', or keigo beyond teineigo. When talking to
other members of your in-group about something a higher up (e.g. teacher) has
done for you, use of passive form, くださる, いただく and お宅 etc. are common. The
passive form of verbs is sometimes used for sempais. But it's rather thinly
used in my experience. (I should quality that Japanese people still show an
enormous amount of respect to higher ups, more so than Western countries, but
language appears to play a smaller role in this than before)
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2015-06-23T23:43:59.427
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Shifting from polite speech to casual speech is usually a gradual and implicit
process when a mature adult makes friends with someone. Depending on the
situation, it may take months or even years to switch. Actually I often find
myself using some polite sentences when I chat with people who have been my
close friends more than 10 years.

Here are some random thoughts:

  * Upbeat, young, blue-collar or _charai_ people are much quicker to adopt casual speech, whereas calm, older, white-collar, urban or _otaku_ people tend to keep using polite speech longer. I basically belong to the latter category :)
  * IMO "go to an _izakaya_ personally and you can drop keigo" is an oversimplification. Nevertheless, an _izakaya_ is certainly a good place to try to start using a bit of casual speech.
  * Exclamatory phrases (especially i-adjectives) and jokes tend to be said in casual forms (すごい! 頑張れ!). です(か) in short sentences is often the first candidate of dropping (いつ? これ? 本当?)
  * Important and/or businesslike topics tend to be discussed in polite forms (e.g., making an appointment, paying at izakaya)
  * There are lots of useful intermediate, "softener" expressions and particles that allow you to avoid sounding overly friendly or remote. (e.g, 見ています → 見てます → 見てるよ → 見てる; 行きませんか → 行きません? → 行きます? → 行かない? → 行く?) Dropping particles like が/を, using contracted forms, choosing slangy/dialectal words and certain sentence-endings ([っす](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/36/5010), じゃん, etc) and so on are all relevant.
  * It's possible to explicitly invite someone to use casual speech (タメ口) if you think the other person is speaking too politely, but please note that being forced to use タメ口 can be sometimes stressful to a person like me. I never do this, and people around me almost never did it to me.
  * Many Japanese people believe that Western people prefer frank communications and that plain forms are easier to understand for foreigners. So what you experience as a foreigner may be a little different from what two native speakers normally do.
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