掲示板 Forums - 謙譲語 and 尊敬語

There is a fairly decent overview of respect language on the sci.lang.japan FAQ. Wikipedia’s Honorific speech in Japanese article covers the same ground in a little more detail, and also includes a list of references for further reading. If you want a reference in Japanese, you could try Midori Bunko.

ポールおじさん's resources give a great overview, but in case anyone wants an in-thread answer that gives the basics:

謙遜語 is used to speak humbly about yourself (or your in-group, e.g. speaking about your family or your company to someone else).

Examples: 参加致します。 失礼致します。

尊敬語 is used to speak respectfully about someone or something other than yourself.

Examples: 部長が参加されます。　社長がご参加なさいます。

If you feel that distinguishing between humble and honorific language is enough for you for now and you don't want to confuse yourself with any other topics (which is fine, because in language learning it's important not to try to take on too many new concepts all at once), skip this next part. These are a few basics of some other words you might hear in association with 敬語。

美化語（びかご） are the honorary prefixes that are added at the beginning of some words (お茶、ご飯、お金 and so on).

丁寧語 is using the polite verb endings です、ます、and so on. If you just want to know how to talk formally, stop here because really basically all you need to know about 丁寧語 is "add です or ます at the end of the verb."

Example: 社長がいらっしゃいます。

One last note, this is slightly more advanced, but it is possible and often happens that you want to speak respectfully about someone while speaking casually to a friend.

Example: 社長がいらっしゃる。　

Both this and the previous sentence mean the company president is or will be [here/there/somewhere]. The sentence above (社長がいらっしゃいます) is speaking respectfully about the company president in a conversation where you are also being polite to the person you are speaking with. The second sentence (社長がいらっしゃる) is what you would say respectfully about the company president in a casual conversation with a friend.

That's something I don't know--whether Renshuu has any grammar lessons on those things. You'd have to ask マイコ―さん or a user who's more familiar with Renshuu's grammar lessons than I am.

I do know there are a lot of terms scattered throughout the vocabulary lessons that happen to be 美化語 or 尊敬語、but I don't know if there is anything specifically on those topics.