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Writer's pictureRyo Hanazawa

お仕事 vs 仕事 : What's a different meaning between two words?

Updated: Mar 5

The Japanese language is sometimes complicated. Two words having the same meaning, sometimes have a bit of different meanings.


“仕事 Shigoto” means work or job in Emglish. “お仕事 Oshigoto” is a polite way to say more than 仕事. For example,


Man : パパはどこへ行ったの? Where did your daddy go?

Little daughter : パパはお仕事. My daddy is job.


We use “お仕事” between familiar people. And we prefer to use “お仕事” against elders. And we use “仕事” relatively on formal relationships, public relationships.


Man1 : 君はこれからどこへ行く? Where are you going from now?

Man2 : 仕事に行きます. I’m going to job.


“お” is a unique beautiful language in Japanese, but you can’t use it all Japanese words. I can say, there is a rule which we are using “お”. You can say “酒” and “お酒”. However, you can say “ビール” but not “おビール”. If you said “おビール” while talking with friends, they definitely say “You are funny!”.


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Thank you for the explanation ☺️

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