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Hello & your name

Greet anyone and introduce yourself

Every conversation you'll ever have in Japanese starts one of two ways: a greeting, and telling someone who you are. Today you'll learn three greetings that cover the whole day, the single sentence pattern that gives your name, and the two set phrases that bookend a first meeting. That's a complete, usable introduction - by the end of this lesson you can walk up to a Japanese speaker and open a conversation properly.

The three greetings

Japanese greetings change with the time of day. Unlike English, where “hello” works from dawn to midnight, Japanese expects you to match the clock. Three words cover almost everything:

ohayō gozaimasu
Good morning (polite)
Used until roughly 10-11am. Drop the ございます and you get おはよう (ohayō) - casual, for friends and family only.
konnichiwa
Hello / good afternoon
Your safe default from late morning until dusk. If you only remember one greeting, make it this one.
konbanwa
Good evening
From dusk onwards. Note it's konbanwa, not konbanha - see the note below.
Why it works

In こんにちは and こんばんは, that last character は is pronounced “wa”, not “ha”. This isn't random: は is the topic-marking particle (you'll meet it properly in a moment), and as a particle it's always said “wa”. These greetings are frozen fragments of longer old sentences, and the particle pronunciation stuck. You don't need to understand the history - just know that whenever は is doing a grammatical job, it sounds like “wa”.

Saying who you are

There's one pattern for giving your name, and it's the same shape as a huge number of other Japanese sentences. Learn this and you've learned a template you'll reuse constantly:

watashi wa ___ desu.
I am ___.
Literally “as for me, ___ is”. Slot your name into the gap: わたしは デイビッド です (watashi wa Debiddo desu).
watashi wa igirisu-jin desu.
I'm British.
Same pattern, different filling. じん (-jin) means “person of ___”: アメリカじん (amerika-jin, American), にほんじん (nihon-jin, Japanese).
Why it works

Break the pattern into three parts. わたし (watashi) = “I / me”. は (wa) = the topic marker, meaning roughly “as for…” - it announces what the sentence is about. です (desu) = the polite “am / is / are”, which always comes at the end. So Japanese puts the verb last: “I - as for - David - am”. That word order feels backwards at first, but every sentence you learn from here follows it, so it stops feeling strange fast.

Opening and closing a first meeting

Japanese brackets a first introduction with two set phrases. They're not optional politeness - leaving them out feels abrupt, like refusing to shake a proffered hand:

hajimemashite.
Nice to meet you.
Said only at a genuine first meeting. It comes from はじめて (hajimete, “for the first time”), so using it with someone you already know sounds odd.
yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
“Please treat me favourably” - the polite close
Has no clean English equivalent. Think of it as “I look forward to our dealings”. Said at the end of an introduction, and again whenever you ask someone for something.
Why it works

Put it together and a full introduction runs: はじめまして。わたしは ＿＿ です。よろしく おねがいします。 (hajimemashite. watashi wa ___ desu. yoroshiku onegaishimasu.) - “Nice to meet you. I'm ___. I look forward to knowing you.” Say those three sentences in order and you've made a textbook-perfect Japanese introduction. It's worth rehearsing until it's automatic; you'll use it every single time you meet someone new.

Check yourself

9 questions. Nothing is saved unless you finish.