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Lots of people ask us for useful phrases in Japanese to make their travels easier – and we highly recommend that you do learn a few words here and there to impress your Japanese hosts. As our Senior Operations Assistant, Akiko, quite rightly says: “It makes us very happy and impressed with your Japanese, and you might get free things!”
So, if you want free things, read on…
You say hello, I say goodbye, the Japanese say… a whole bunch of stuff.
One of the first things you’ll learn in any language (after the swear words, obviously) are greetings. Greetings precede and conclude almost every social interaction we have: they’re the slices of bread that hold the sandwich of conversation together. They’re the perfect place for any language learner to start.
But this is where things begin to get tricky, because the Japanese don’t just make do with a simple “hello”, “goodbye”, and perhaps a “how do you do?” for good measure. That would be far too easy. They are quite simply obsessed with greetings. Like slippers, there have a set for every possible occasion – whether you’re entering a room, leaving a room, bumping into a colleague at work, or picking your nose. They are never, ever lost for words.
As a foreigner in Japan, you will only ever need to know the tip of the iceberg of Japanese greetings – and even those will be a source of delight to anyone you try them out on. So unusual is it for the Japanese to hear an outsider speaking their language that the merest indication that you have made the effort to master a word or two will be met with shock, awe, and declarations of your genius. It’s a great feeling, you should try it! (It gets a bit wearing when you’ve been living in Japan for years, but don’t worry about that for now).
Here are a few to get you started:
Konnichiwa – “Hello”
Sayonara – “Goodbye”
Ohayo gozaimasu – “Good morning” (Or, more informally, simply Ohayo)
Konbanwa – “Good evening”
Oyasumi nasai – “Good night”
Hajimemashite – “How do you do?”
But that’s only the beginning. There’s also:
Moshi moshi – “Hello” (when answering the phone)
Hisashiburi – “Hello” (when greeting someone you haven’t seen for a long time)
Itte kimasu – “I’m going out and then coming back” (when leaving the house)
Itterashai – “I’m acknowledging that you’re going and coming back” (reply to itte kimasu)
Tadaima – “I went out and now I’ve come back”
Okaerinasai – “Welcome back” (reply to tadaima)
Itadakimasu – “I’m about to eat my food”
Gochisosama deshita – “I’ve finished my food, it was great”
And then…
And then there are the greetings that belong to the world of Japanese keigo, or polite language. This is where we really get into the realms of the untranslatable – because Japanese honorific language is a force unto itself. Any English interpretation can only ever be a poor approximation, because this level of politeness just doesn’t exist in our brains. Here are just a few examples, complete with cack-handed explanations that you absolutely shouldn’t take as gospel:
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu
This is a phrase that’s used a lot in Japanese, and funnily enough nobody can really tell you what it means. Sometimes is means “nice to meet you”, sometimes it means “send my regards”, sometimes it means “please help me”… usually I just say it and hope for the best. I’m not going to attempt to demystify it any further, because Tofugu has already done it infinitely better than I ever could.
Otsukaresama desu
This is what the Japanese say when they bump into a colleague (in the corridor for example), or when they’ve finished work for the day. It roughly translates as “thank you for working so hard”, but there are more subtleties to it than that (subtleties that are beyond me, I am perfectly ready to admit). The hairdresser says it to you when you’ve had a haircut, for instance. Don’t ask me why.
When I worked in a Japanese hotel, I noticed that the number of syllables people bothered to pronounce was inversely proportional to their rank: more senior = fewer syllables. Fresh-off-the-boat interns like myself would say the full otsukaresama desu with a little bow for good measure, but then there was a diminishing scale running from otsukaresama through otsukare, then otsu, finally ending in the stony-faced “ssss” uttered by the older gentlemen of the hotel. But enough about otsukaresama desu.
Irrashaimase
Irrashaimase is a word you will definitely hear if you visit Japan. In fact, it will be ringing in your ears long after you’ve returned home.
The klaxon call of the Japanese shopkeeper, irrashaimase basically means “welcome to my shop/hotel/café/restaurant/whatever”. It’s typically said in a piercing nasal whine, with the final syllable “se” elongated to a preposterous degree. Shopkeepers, shop assistants, bellboys, waiters – they won’t just call it when you arrive, they’ll exclaim it periodically for the entire time you’re in their establishment.
I think of it as a form of national tourettes. Listen closely to the video below and you’ll begin to understand what I mean…
Shitsurei shimasu
Shitsurei shimasu literally translates as “I am doing something rude” (even though Japanese people almost never do anything rude EVER) and is used in a variety of situations. You might use it when entering or leaving a room, squeezing past someone in a crowd, ending a formal phone call, or when leaving work before your colleagues (which, if you’ve ever worked in a Japanese office, you’ll find yourself doing quite a lot). In the latter example, you’d say: osakini shitsurei shimasu.
Itsumo osewa ni natte orimasu
This is a phrase that I heard a lot when working in Japan. It’s used as a formal greeting on the phone (and, I’m told, in emails and letters), and means something like: “thank you for your continued support/hard work” – although, as ever, this translation is a poor estimate of what the words actually mean in Japanese. Something beyond the realm of my understanding, that’s for sure.
My Japanese is severely limited, and as this short journey has taken us to the edge of my linguistic ability (and probably the edge of your interest in obscure formal greetings, too), I’ll leave it here for now. Keep your eyes peeled for more philological musings to come…