ごあいさつを頂きます vs 申し上げます
As emcee, 頂きます frames receiving the speech as benefit to the room; 申し上げます can sound like you are delivering it. Inside vs outside guests change which feels natural — match who is “giving” the greeting.
Keigo to your boss in front of their boss
Input
課長は、このようにおっしゃっていました。
Natural Japanese
課長は、このように申しておりました。
Speaking to the department head about the section chief: heavy sonkeigo toward the mid-level boss can feel odd. Prefer formality to the highest addressee (申しておりました) without elevating the mid-level as if they were soto. Local culture wins.
Judgment paraphrased from Japan’s cultural council keigo guideline (2007) — learner explanation, not an official translation.
御苦労様 to a superior — usually no
Input
Thank you for staying late to teach me.
Natural Japanese
遅くまでご指導いただき、誠にありがとうございます。
御苦労様 is typically downward care. To a superior who helped you, prefer thanks (ありがとうございました) or お疲れ様でございました in mutual-work contexts.
Rewritten with Tadashii Kotoba — Business style, recipient: client (live API).
Compliments and とんでもございません
Praising a lecturer’s tie or a boss’s teaching needs care — appearance/skill compliments to superiors can feel too familiar. On deflecting praise, とんでもございません is widely used to lightly deny a compliment; some pedants dislike splitting とんでもない, but the guideline treats the humble-deflection use as basically OK. Don’t use it when you mean “that idea is outrageous.”