honorific o

when are we sopposed to put this on words? ....its not really "clicking" for me and how can we tell the honorific o apart from the object particle o when we are talking to someone? context?

Konnichiwa! The honorific *O* is used to be POLITE. It's an optional add-on that shows respect to others. Think of it as the English "honorable". Though "honorable" is a mouthful, *O*, can be attached to words much more easily. It is sometimes easy to confuse the particle *O *with the *O-* prefix used as an honorific for some nouns, so be careful. Some of these are: * *o-tenki*: the weather * *o-cha*: tea * *o-mizu*: water * *o-niku*: meat * *o-naka*: stomach * *o-kuruma*: car These can be both interesting and confusing. Some use the o- prefix only SOMEtimes. For example, when talking about your own car or cars in general, you would never use the o- prefix. You would just say *kuruma*. Whereas salespeople would refer the car on sale as *Okuruma*, to be polite. But, there are certain words that uses *O* regardless of whether you're being polite or not. Like, _MONEY_, is *KANE*, but you'll hear people say *OKANE*, more commonly than *KANE* even if it's their own money. The same goes for ONAKA. And, *OCHA*, _TEA_ is said with the *O* no matter what. :shock:

So you dont have to use the honorific o for some words, its just polite to?