Japanese greetings is a complex topic as there are many cultural formalities mixed into the language. In this chapter we will explain some of the basic greetings.  We have arranged the greetings into the following categories; simple time-based; farewell and informal greetings; formal introductions; and seasonal greetings.

Simple Time Based Greetings

There are a couple of greetings that are very much alike English greetings such as "good day" and "good evening" These are ohayo gozaimasu, konnichiwa and konbanwa.

おはようございます – Ohayo gozaimasu 

Ohayo gozaimasu, or the casual short form "ohayo" is used as "good morning" from the morning until lunchtime. It is both used in families and in more formal situations such as at work.

こんにちは – Konnichiwa

Konnichiwa, good day, is used from around lunchtime until nightfall. It can be used in any situation. The word konnichiwa can be written in kanji as 今日は, but it is mostly written in hiragana as こんにちは.

こんばんは – Konbanwa

Konbanwa, good evening, is used after nightfall until morning. It can be used in any situation. 

Farewell and Informal Greetings

A standard polite way to say goodbye/farewell is to say "sayonara".

• さようなら – sayounara
  This is a bit formal way to depart. It would be similar to say "farewell" in English instead of good bye.

Other more casual ways are:

• バイバイ – bai bai
  This expression, taken from the English bye bye is a very common way to say goodbye to your friends.
• またね – mata ne
  This is similar to "see you later". Literally it means "again (right)".
• じゃーね – jaa ne
  This is similar to English "well, that’s it". It is hard to make an literal translation.

Coming to and Leaving Home 

When leaving and coming back home you can use the following expressions. They go in sets, and are also used in some other cases when it is the feeling of coming and returning home. It could for instance be used when leaving your office to go on a business trip. In such situations it may be said as a bit of a joke.

• 行って来ます- Ittekimasu
  Ittekimasu is said by the person departing from home. A more formal version would be ittemairimasu.
• いってらっしゃい – Itterasshai
  Itterasshai is said to a person leaving home. A more formal version would be Itterasshaimase.

• ただいま – Tadaima
  When you return home you would say Tadaima! or the more polite version Tadaima kaerimashita.
• おかえりなさい – okaerinasai
  When someone is coming back home you greet them with okaerinasai or the more casual version okaeri!  The most polite version would be okaerinasaimase, but would be used very rarely.

Take Care 

Other expressions used when departing are

• 気をつけてね – kiotsukete ne
  Kiotsukete is often used as "take care", for instance when someone is going away for a trip. Literally it means "please be
  attentive/mindful".

• 元気でね – ogenkide ne
  Ogenkidene is also similar to "take care" but with may imply that
  the speakers are not likely to see each other for a (subjectively)
  long time.

• お大事に – odaiji ni
  Odaiji ni is also used for "take care" but implies that the listener is sick, so it would not be used in other situations. 

Formal Greetings

When meeting a person for the first time, there is a special set of expressions that are often used. The following conversation shows a standard introduction of two people in a business situation. 

Japanese (hiragana): 

いらっしゃいませ – Welcome to Our Store

In Japanese stores and restaurants it is very common to greet people with irasshaimase. If walking through a department store you may even get it from every small store you pass by.

Other Greetings

There are probably a lot more seasonal greetings than the ones we introduce here, but maybe it will give you a glimpse of the most important ones.

New Year

For new year there are two greetings.

• Yoi otoshi o
  Yoi otoshi o is used before new year, to wish the person a coming happy new year. It is a set expression, but actually it is an incomplete sentence that means "a good year"
• Akemashite omedetou
  Akemashite omedetou is said after the new year has begun.

Basic negative sentences such as “I am not hungry” are contructed in Japanese by changing the ending of the verb to the negative form. Adjectives also have changes in their endings to become negative.

Verbs ~nai / ~masen

Verbs are changed to their negative form by changing the end of the verb. For polite forms, this is done by replacing the -masu word ending with -masen. For the plain form, it is done as described by the table below.

Plain Forms

Polite Forms

The special word Desu – Dewa Arimasen

The word desu is similar to a verb, but is actually something called copula. The following table shows how to construct the negative versions of the copula da/desu. There are two versions of the negative tense of desu. Both can be used in most situations, but the versions based on ja sounds a bit more causual than dewa.

Adjectives

As you can read in the chapter Adjectives, there are two kinds of adjectives in Japanese. The -i adjectives and the-na adjectives. These two adjectives are handled differently when made negative.

• You make -i adjectives negative by changing the -i ending to ~kunai.
• You make -na adjectives negative by adding the negative form of desu to the end of the sentence.

Just note that when changing an -i adjective to negative form, you should keep the verb or desu in positive form..

Examples

あの人は警察官でわありません。
Ano hito wa keisatsukan dewa arimasen.
That person is not a policeman.

私は寒くないです。
Watashi wa samukunai desu.
I am not (feeling) cold.

あの絵はきれいでわありません。
Ano e wa kirei dewa arimasen.
That painting is not beautiful.

A sentence is made into a question by placing the particle か (ka) at the end. This works for both polite sentences (ending with desu/masu) and plain sentences.

The basic patterns of questions are described in the following table – ending a positive or negative sentence with か (ka). Using the negative form can both be a ordinary negative question, but can also be a way of making the question or request softer, very much as in English “Wouldn’t a walk be nice?” instead of straightly saying “Would you like to take a walk?”.

Note on Casual Japanese

Please note that, in casual Japanese, the sentence ending か (ka) can be omitted, and only indicated by a slight raise of tone in the end of the sentence. Casual questions can also be done using の (no) in the end of the sentence, for example たべるの？ (taberu no).

As you may know, 桜 (さくら – sakura – cherry blossoms) is the Japanese national flower, and we’ve been loving this flower for a long, long time. Here’s a short story about Sakura.

天気予報 – Weather Forecast

When you look at (or listen to) a weather forecast, you often hear a term like “寒冷前線 (かんれいぜんせん – kanrei zensen – a cold front)” in a sentence like “A cold front will pass over the Hokkaido district tomorrow.” Besides 寒冷前線 (a cold front) and 温暖前線 (おんだんぜんせん – ondan zensen – a warm front), we have a word “桜前線 (さくらぜんせん – sakura zensen – a cherry blossom front)” as if it’s one of the weather terms. Actually, when the flowers open is announced by 気象庁 (きしょうちょう – kishouchou – the Meteorological Agency) every spring, and it starts from the most southern part of Japan and goes up to the north. Usually it begins around the end of March, and the 桜前線 (a cherry blossom front) comes to the northern Hokkaido area around the beginning of May.

Around this season, we look at 天気予報 (てんきよほう – tenki yohou – weather forecast) with more attention because of 桜前線 (a cherry blossom front), and we might check the calender as a child starts caring about whether a particular Sunday will be fine or rainy. If you know about our custom called “お花見 (おはなみ – ohanami)”, you must understand these exciting feelings very well. But even though you’re not interested in the lively (or noisy) picnic, it’s very nice to see beautiful cherry blossoms on a clear Sunday.

There are so many kinds of 桜 (cherry blossoms), and one of them called ソメイヨシノ (somei yoshino) and is refered mainly by the 気象庁 (the Meteorological Agency). There are lots of parks or other viewing spots where we can enjoy walking or having a party “お花見 (ohanami)” all over Japan, but some places are forbidden to enter. In some places, you can enjoy 夜桜 (よざくら – yozakura) which means “cherry blossoms at night” directly. You find that it’s indeed attractive if you look at lots of illuminated 桜 (cherry blossoms) in the darkness.

お花見 – Ohanami Party

Well, personally I don’t like the too lively party “お花見 (ohanami)”, but lots of people want to go out for that, and a terrible traffic jam happens here and there because of it. So many groups such as family, close friends and co-workers are trying to find better viewing place and spread something to sit down over the lawn and prepare for the お花見. Originally “お花見” means “viewing flowers” and it refers to 桜 (cherry blossoms), but more people actually want to enjoy eating, drinking and singing karaoke rather than viewing. It’s a proverb, “花より団子 (はなよりだんご – hana yori dango)” which means “eating more than viewing flowers” or something like that. If you were a member of the royal family, the お花見 would be so graceful, but common people seem to be happy with such “simple” ones. One of the troubled things is their bad behavior like leaving garbage and being noisy etc, and some people don’t like the custom because of that.

Sakura in Food and Drinks

散らし寿司 (ちらしずし – chirashizushi) might be one dish that we come up with first around this season. It’s a kind of 寿司 (すし – sushi), and it’s a very colorful one; some colorful materials like yellow (egg), pale pink (salmon), black (“nori – seaweeds”), red (red jinjer) and so on – they are scattered (散らしてある – chirashite aru) over vinegared rice. You can buy vinegared mix so that you can make the base rice by mixing it with cooked rice, and recently we often see another one made called “桜寿司 (さくらずし – sakurazushi) at supermarkets. It’s a vinegared mix including chopped cherry leaves and smells like cinnamon. You can buy salted cherry leaves and possibly salted cherry flowers at department stores, so you can also put them on top og the rice together with other materials.

桜茶 (さくらちゃ – sakuracha): I suspect that this is not so popular, at least around here, and actually I’ve never tried it so far. Once I heard from a friend who tasted it in Kyoto, and it sounded quite “tasteful” visually rather than the actual taste. You put a whole lot of 桜の花 (さくらのはな – sakura no hana – cherry flower) in a cup. It’s moist and looks wrinkled because it is salted. You pour hot water in the cup; then, the flower begins opening little by little. The actual taste is a little salty and not wonderfully good, she said, but you can enjoy the graceful performance and good smell like the cinnamon by 桜の花 (cherry flower).

Besides the above, we have lots of sakura products like 桜餅 (sakuramochi – one of Japanese sweets) and Western style cakes with cherry leaves and flowers. Besides food, we adopt this flower as the pattern of 着物 (きもの – kimono) and other clothes, there are some girls who have the kanji “桜 (sakura)” as her name, there are lots of words and phrases with 桜 (sakura), and I was in a class called “さくら組 (さくらぐみ – sakuragumi – a group of Sakura) when I was in a kindergarten.

Sakura in Poetry

If you’re interested in 俳句 (はいく – haiku) and 短歌 (たんか – tanka), you can find the word “桜” is used often in such poems. It’s called “季語 (きご – kigo)”, and you can express the 季節 (きせつ – kisetsu – season) as 春 (はる – haru – spring) by using the word “桜”. Besides such classical poems, you find the word “桜” in lyrics of Japanese pop songs so often if it’s a song about spring. Japanese social life ends in March, and graduation ceremonies take place in this month. So, the word “桜” or the flower might remind you of little painful and lonely feelings when you hear some of the songs.

Pay Your Attention to the Right Things

There is a expression in Japanese called “花より団子”.

• 花 – はな – hana – flower, blossom
• 団子 – だんご – dango

The word “dango” means smaller and rounder things, and it’s often translated to “dumpling” when it refers to food. But in the case of the saying, “dango” is sweets which are sticky small balls. You can buy it at supermarkets and convenience stores, besides Japanese sweets shops, and generally you can enjoy three kinds of tastes; しょうゆ (shouyu – sweetened sauce with soy sauce), 胡麻 (ごま – goma – sweetened sesame paste) and 餡 (あん – an – sweet bean paste).

Thus, you must be able to understand that we pay more attention to “dango” rather than viewing flowers!

Posted by Shizu

Edited by the StudyJapanese.org Team