When It Counts -습니다

This is the register for job interviews, formal presentations, news broadcasts, the military, and speaking to a boss or someone significantly senior for the first time. Everyday friendships, even respectful ones, mostly live in polite -요 speech. Formal isn’t “more polite than polite,” it’s a different social mode: distance and structure rather than warmth.

You’ll read this register far more than you’ll speak it. Train announcements, product packaging, official notices, and museum placards are almost always written in -습니다/-ㅂ니다, because it reads as neutral and authoritative rather than personal, exactly the tone a sign is going for.