いただきます (itadakimasu) | Express Gratitude and Humbly Receive Things in Japanese

Imagine you visit Tokyo and stop by a McDonald's restaurant. A Japanese man sitting near you says いただきます

under his breath before eating. This phrase is one of the first phrases you'll come across if you want to learn Japanese, but your teacher may just tell you that "it's something you say before you eat". Why is that, though? What makes this phrase the Japanese equivalent of saying grace?

So if you're willing to humbly receive the knowledge we at Migaku happily share, keep reading and discover the true nature of いただきます.

The meaning of itadakimasu

Originally, いただきます

(いただく in its plain form) had a meaning of placing something on one's head––think a crown or head ornament. The meaning changed over time to mean something like a humble acceptance of something given by a social superior (i.e. a boss, teacher, senpai, etc).

As per the スーパー大辞林 dictionary:

What these two definitions have in common is the idea of "coming down from above". A crown is lowered from the air onto one's head, and somewhat similarly, permission is granted by someone with a higher social status to someone with a lower status.

In the rest of this article we'll look at several situations where いただく comes up in modern Japanese, but they all boil down to this notion of being "received from above".

1. いただきます said before a meal as table manners

As illustrated at the top of this article, Japanese speakers normally say itadakimasu just before eating a meal. You can think of it as being table etiquette. (For good measure, you often follow up with ごちそうさま{でした}

after the meal). Even salarymen who eat their lunch alone at McDonald's will still say these phrases to themselves quietly.

This now begs the question: who are we receiving something from, and why must you receive it humbly?

While there are a few theories out there, Japanese parents and teachers often say that the phrase expresses appreciation for the people who prepared your food for you and the farmers who produced the food. The humility is in expressing gratitude for their hard work, which you are benefitting from.

So should you use いただきます before eating your meals, too? If you're in Japan, go for it! If you're not in Japan, it might be seen as sort of weird, especially if those around you don't speak Japanese... but it is indeed correct and proper, so we'll leave the choice up to you.

2. いただく in humble speech

We have an entire blog post about keigo. It's a solid read. If you're in a hurry, though, the gist is that Japanese has multiple politeness levels. Whereas politeness is a personal thing in English, it's a very functional thing in Japanese: your choice of speech level indicates how you see the relationship between yourself and the listener.

Or, more concretely:

As such, rather than using casual speech or even "just" speaking politely, society says you must use a whole new set of words and verb forms called 敬語 (keigo

, honorific language). There are two subcategories of keigo:

And while there are tons of keigo expressions, you really only need to know two things when it comes to いただく:

A) A more humble version of もらう (morau, to receive)

The verb もらう

means to receive.

Breaking that down a bit, you should note that:

But in situations that demand the speaker humble or lower themselves, もらう is switched out for いただく. This is the case with social superiors like bosses, teachers, or the Emperor.

Note that, if the speaker themself is the subject of the sentence, the subject will often be omitted from the sentence. Additionally, when いただく is used as a standalone verb like this, you may see it written in kanji as 頂く.

B) A humble version of 食べる (taberu, to eat) and 飲む (nomu, to drink)

The humble way to express the action of eating and drinking is also done with いただく.

Basically, if you're in a situation where honorific speech is expected of you, and you want to say 食べる (taberu

, "to eat") or 飲む (nomu , "to drink"), you should say いただく instead.

3. いただく in other situations

Here are three common grammar points in which you'll see いただく:

Importantly, in cases like these, where いただく is being used as part of a grammatical structure, it is often written in just hiragana.

A) ていただく → Having someone do something for you

You can use いただく to indicate that you got someone to do something for you.

Note that the above sentences are pretty formal in nature. The more you study keigo, the more this will be a trend you notice: you just don't use keigo with your friends, so you'll often find yourself using keigo in specific situations or phrases.

Here's a "normal" version of this grammar point, for reference, followed by a humble version of the same sentence:

B) ていただけますか → Humbly requesting something

To make a humble request, simply use a verb in its te-form along with いただけますか

or いただけませんか .

Note the slight difference in spelling in these examples compared to the previous ones: not いただきます but rather いただけます. This is because the potential form is being used here, which makes the statement feel a bit softer. You'll often hear this phrase in the customer service industry.

C) させていただきます → Getting permission to do something

In some instances, you can declare what you are about to do by first "claiming" permission to do it. You'll often hear this structure in self introductions, for example:

Note that you don't actually have to wait for permission. Unless somebody immediately objects, you just move on with whatever you said you were going to do.

4. Rarer uses of いただく

Here are two usages of itadaku that most people won't encounter... but if you're a history buff or a book worm, you might.

A) The "original" use of itadaku

As explained at the beginning of the article, いただく originally meant placing something on one's head. It still technically has that meaning, but the only real time you will encounter this usage these days is with crowns, tiaras, or other royal head objects.

(Did you notice that? When used in sentences involving royalty, itadaku's kanji changes from 頂 to 戴.)

B) Some metaphors which include itadaku

There are some fixed descriptions that feature いただく.

As per スーパー大辞林:

Even here, notice that the nuance sort of fits. Whether we're talking about a starry night or snow-topped mountains, both of those things feature something much higher than the speaker that is bearing down toward them.

Want to learn Japanese for real?

The #1 reason that learners fail to learn Japanese is that they spend a lot of time learning about Japanese but very little time actually in Japanese.

You would be right to retort that you need to understand Japanese before you can consume media in Japanese, and I would respond with two points:

So, we built a course that puts these ideas at the forefront.

Here's what makes the Migaku Japanese Academy so special:

So, basically, we spoonfeed you the precise words you need to begin exploring real Japanese media. At a pace of 10 flashcards per day, you'll be ready to begin exploring Netflix in Japanese in about 6 months.

Learn Japanese with Migaku

Nice! You should now know what itadakimasu means.

Well, that was quite a ride! You've now seen all of the usages of itadaku that you're likely going to encounter, but if you explore keigo more deeply, you'll stumble into a few additional variations on some of the above phrases and usages.

For now, though, we humbly receive the allowance of imparting the Golden Rule of Language Learning upon you:

And there you have it! Great work on reading this far, humbly receiving all that we wrote.