Japanese Greetings

As in many countries greetings are very important in Japan. In the morning your co-workers will greet you with a very genki "O ha yo go za i ma su". It's the "gozaimasu" which makes it polite, just like the super polite "Thank you" is "A ri ga to u go za i ma su".

Then in the afternoon the greeting changes to the familar "Kon ni chi wa".

Then if you meet your friends in the evening it will be "Kon ban wa".

"O ya su mi na sa i" is "good night", but only just before you go to bed, so it's mainly used in families. If you leave work late at night you'll have to say "shi tsu re i shi ma su" - "Sorry for being rude and going home before you all"!

As usual, try out the game a few times and after you can get up to a score of 12 or 13, you'll have the pronunciation well and truly drummed into your head!



There's a teaching English version of this game on Genki English CD Vol. 3.

Recommended Courses

There are loads of great resources out there, and one of the good ones is the "Pimsleur" series. They have a "Quick & Simple" starter pack and also a full on "Gold Course". They are well recommended if you want to learn Japanese, in January I used it to learn everyday Spanish in a month!

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Or for slightly cheaper, but one that requires a bit more work, you can have a look at the Living Language series. Although now I would prefer the Pimsleur course above, I actually used the Living Language series myself when I first learnt Japanese. It's good, but you have to keep repeating and repeating the same CDs, whereas the Pimsleur makes you think more, and reviews the language as you go along.


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If you teach English in Japan you might be interested in my new Classroom English / Classroom Japanese CD.

All the Japanese on this page is suitable for either guys or girls, and is pretty normal, everyday Japanese. This means it's not too formal, but you'll be fine as long as you don't say it to anyone too posh!

Read the hints & tips I used to get fluent in Japanese.

Email me if you have any questions or comments,
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Mata ne!
Be genki,

Richard

Copyright Richard Graham All rights reserved

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