Quote:
Originally Posted by masaegu
In my lexicon (if attending kindergarten thru university and working over 20 years in Japan is enough to form my own lexicon to use on JF), です/ます isn't even polite. I've stated this many times on JF and so have a few other extremely knowledgeable older native speakers here. です/ます is just average on the politeness scale, period. I shall never accomodate myself to how they may teach Japanese outside of Japan. If です/ます were polite, how would one even categorize ございます/いたします, etc?
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I've always seen ます form referred to in Japanese as 丁寧語. That is, I believe, why we call it "polite form" in English.