I recently went to a Japanese language teachers’ training class in NYC where native Japanese people attended. When each attendee introduced themselves, many used an expression, ” ~ のお仕事をさせていただいております。” Is it necessary to say “させていただいて ”? Why can’t we just simply say “しております。”? We are the people doing the action, “work”. Is this passive expression necessary here?
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I agree with you. For some reasons, Japanese people have begun to use the expression of “sasete-itadaite-orimasu.” The use of double honorifics of “sasete” and “itadaite” is odd but I sometimes wonder if I should use it, because an explicit sentence like, “I teach English,” may sound boastful to some people who are used to the implicitness of Japanese expressions. I am caught in a dilemma between explicitness and implicitness. Yet, “I teach English, with grateful acceptance of your permission,” sounds ugly and I have never used it when I introduce my job in the Japanese language. Some people may do.
Thank you, Nicky. You are the first person who replied to my post in this blog. I have been living in NYC past 20 years, and sometimes I am still surprised by the gap between New York and Japan for how people express themselves.