Tondemonai desu (とんでもないです): not at all. Said modestly when a superior thanks or praises the speaker. The Agency for Cultural Affairs’ guidelines on honorific language of 2007 treat it as acceptable for lightly turning aside praise. Kyōshuku desu (恐縮です): I am much obliged. A business guide explains that kyōshuku also means feeling sorry for causing trouble or for receiving someone’s kindness.
Neither Praised Nor a Burden
Miyazawa Kenji’s poem Ame ni mo makezu (Unbeaten by Rain) ends with a wish. It describes a person whom everyone calls a dekunobō, a blockhead, who is neither praised nor treated as a burden. The poem’s last words say that such a person is what the poet wants to become.
The Value of Words
The baseball manager Nomura Katsuya told the sports magazine Number: Kantoku to iu no wa yatara to homemakuccha ikan. Yasuppoku naru. Kotoba no neuchi ga sagarimasu. A manager must not praise all the time. It becomes cheap, and the value of his words goes down.
Praised in Front of Others
In President Online, a consultant who works on developing young employees wrote that many young employees today feel embarrassed when they are praised in front of others and would rather it stopped.
He asked some of them why in private. They said that they did not like drawing attention, that they did not want to be seen as remarkable when they did not think they were, and that they feared everyone would now expect the same results every time.
Entrust, but Do Not Abandon
Makasete makasazu: entrust, but do not leave it entirely. A Gentōsha article calls it a well-known saying of Matsushita Kōnosuke, the founder of Matsushita Electric, the company now called Panasonic. The article explains the meaning: a leader should not hand over work and forget it, but should keep watching and support the person.
No original document for the saying was found.
The Vocabulary of Shared Credit
Okagesama de (お陰様で): thanks to you. A Japanese explainer notes that it carries the meaning: “I could not have done it alone, but I was able to do it thanks to you.”
Ichigan (一丸): one lump. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as a single mass with one heart. Its example: zen’in ichigan to natte nankyoku o kirinukeru, everyone becomes one to get through a crisis.
Masters of Praise
In 2011, the Japan Praise Masters Association, Nihon Homeru Tatsujin Kyōkai, was founded by Nishimura Takayoshi, who became its chair. It runs a certification test in praising, the Hometatsu! Kentei.
An article in the business magazine President reported that more than 5,000 people had passed the test and that companies and local governments were adopting it quickly.
Two Hundred Omelets
At Sukiyabashi Jirō, the Tokyo sushi restaurant of Ono Jirō, an apprentice trains for about ten years before being allowed to make the tamagoyaki, the sweet rolled omelet.
The apprentice Nakazawa Daisuke, who appears in the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, has said in interviews that he made it about 200 times before Jirō accepted one. In the film, he says he cried when Jirō finally said it was good.