politeness - "You don't have to be so polite." Really?

Sometimes a Japanese person will say to me:

そんなに丁寧な言葉を使わなくてもいいんですよ。

This is an invitation to be less formal. But how much less formal? As I have experienced, sometimes unintentional gaffes can be committed blithely as one learns to navigate the treacherous waters of the politeness hierarchy. Note that the expression itself uses です even though it is a request to use less formal speech, and that is the level of politeness I would normally be using. So I find the whole matter confusing. The eternal politeness dance ...

Now, here's the catch: I feel it would be rude to ask something like "What level of politeness do you suggest I use?" That might come off as sarcastic or, worse, a rebuke. Any advice?

Edit to add more detail

An example of this kind of occurrence: At a lunch after a business meeting, I was using standard TV keigo: desu, -masu, plus o- and go- where appropriate, plus a bit of nasaimasu and itashimasu to senior people. The gentleman seated across from me (on about the same level as me), said this rather matter-of-factly. Honestly, I really wish he hadn't said this. It was like saying "Don't worry about the snakes, just stick your hand in there."

Answer

As others have said, this is a really hard question to answer because it is always so context-dependent. This is the sort of thing that Japanese people themselves struggle with, to an extent, especially when people from different generations or backgrounds (Tokyo vs Osaka etc.) are speaking with each other. All those "introduction to keigo" books in the bookstore aren't just there for light reading.

Here's an analogy: You grow up playing classical piano. In your 20s, you get into jazz. Your fundamentals and technique are fine, but you don't yet have your own sound. One day, you're at a jam session playing standards. A saxophone player who also part-owns the place comes over to you in a break and says, "You know, you don't have to play so in all the time." How do you change your playing style?

Your options are pretty similar as a language learner and a musician:

• Listen. Pay close attention to how others around you talk, both on your side and the other side, higher status and lower status, very familiar to each other and recently introduced. If you hear differences than you think you can adopt...


• Experiment. Take it one step at a time: Try dialing back some of the less common honorific and humble forms first, especially if others on your side and in your position are too.



• Observe. People probably won't react in immediate, visually obvious ways unless you do something really bad. But they might react in more subtle ways, by engaging with what you say more deeply, and asking you more direct questions -- or the opposite.


• Woodshed. Practice as much as you can. If you haven't got a tutor or anything, or friends/family who'll let you practice on them, buy books and do the exercises. There are good books and bad books, but even a bad book should give you a better idea of how to make fine-grained changes. And...


• Find a mentor. If you can enlist someone in your company to help you out, great. If they are your supervisor, even better! Ask them after the meeting how you went. (Ask them questions like this!) Copy what they do. You'll find your own style eventually.

And one final meta-point: Be aware that sometimes people don't say exactly what they mean. Some people really do want to speak more casually (I have seen, in a business context, Customer A specifically ask if Supplier B wouldn't mind using "san" rather than "sama", and I believe they meant it). Others think they do but don't like the results. Others may want to speak very casually at lunch but very formally in the meeting room. It all comes down to observation and experience.