さしあげる・くださる・いただく

When giving and receiving with superiors (teachers, bosses, customers), the trio あげる・くれる・もらう switches to polite forms: さしあげる (humble — I give/present to a superior), くださる (honorific — a superior gives to me), いただく (humble — I receive from a superior). The sentence structures and particles stay the same as with the plain set.

Note that くださる conjugates irregularly in the ます-form: くださいます (not くださります). In fact, you've been using relatives of these words all along: the ください in 〜てください from N5 is the imperative form of くださる, and the いただきます said before meals literally means "I humbly receive."

In the opposite, downward direction — giving to children, animals, or plants — traditional Japanese uses やる instead of あげる: 犬にえさをやる (feed the dog) — though nowadays many people just use あげる as the gentler option. This whole set belongs to the honorifics system you'll study in full in the Keigo chapter.

Examples

• 私(わたし)は先生(せんせい)にお土産(みやげ)をさしあげました。

  I gave my teacher a souvenir.

• 部長(ぶちょう)は私(わたし)に本(ほん)をくださいました。

  The department manager gave me a book.

• 私(わたし)は社長(しゃちょう)にお酒(さけ)をいただきました。

  I received sake from the company president.

Related patterns

• あげる・くれる・もらう
• 敬語（尊敬語・謙譲語・丁寧語）
• 〜ていただけませんか