Japanese Greetings and Basic Phrases, and When to Use Them

Greetings are the first Japanese almost everyone learns, and also the first place textbook Japanese goes subtly wrong. The words are easy; knowing which one fits the situation is the actual skill.

Here are the phrases worth knowing, with the context that makes them land.

The core greetings

• おはようございます (ohayou gozaimasu): good morning. Drop ございます with friends: おはよう. In many workplaces it's used as a general "first time I've seen you today" greeting, even in the evening.
• こんにちは (konnichiwa): hello / good afternoon. Note the spelling: written は, pronounced "wa", because it's the topic particle fossilized into the phrase (more on that particle). Trap: you don't say this to family or close colleagues you see daily; it's slightly distant.
• こんばんは (konbanwa): good evening. Same は spelling quirk.
• おやすみなさい (oyasuminasai): good night, said when parting for sleep. Casual: おやすみ.

Leaving and arriving

• さようなら (sayounara): goodbye, but heavier than English "bye". It carries a sense of "we won't meet for a while", so it sounds strange to a coworker you'll see tomorrow. Use じゃあね / またね (casual) or 失礼します (shitsurei shimasu, leaving a formal setting) instead.
• いってきます / いってらっしゃい: "I'm off" / "come back safely", said in a household when someone leaves.
• ただいま / おかえりなさい: "I'm home" / "welcome back".

Thanks and apologies

• ありがとうございます: thank you. Drop ございます with friends. Past tense ありがとうございました for something already completed.
• すみません (sumimasen): the workhorse. It means "excuse me", "sorry", and "thank you for the trouble". Use it to get a server's attention, to squeeze past someone, or to accept a favor.
• ごめんなさい (gomen nasai): a real apology, more personal than すみません. Casual: ごめん.
• 申し訳ありません (moushiwake arimasen): formal apology for business or serious situations.

Phrases that carry you through a trip

• お願いします (onegaishimasu): "please" when requesting or ordering. Point and say it.
• いただきます / ごちそうさまでした: before and after eating.
• 大丈夫です (daijoubu desu): "it's fine / no thanks". Extremely versatile, and the polite way to decline.
• わかりません (wakarimasen): "I don't understand."
• 日本語が少しわかります: "I understand a little Japanese."
• もう一度お願いします: "one more time, please."
• 英語を話せますか: "do you speak English?"
• これをください: "this one, please."
• トイレはどこですか: "where is the toilet?"

The register trap

The biggest beginner mistake isn't pronunciation. It's register. Japanese encodes your relationship to the listener in the form of the words themselves, and using a casual form with a stranger, or stiff formal language with a friend, is noticeable in a way that a wrong vowel isn't.

The safe default for learners is the polite です/ます form. It's correct with strangers, staff, colleagues, and anyone older, and nobody is ever offended by it. Learn casual speech later, deliberately, once you can hear the difference; that ordering is deliberate, and this guide explains why.

The second trap is anime. Anime Japanese is dramatic, gendered, and often rough, great for listening practice, risky as a phrasebook.

Where to go from here

Phrases get you through a trip. They don't get you to understanding, because a memorized phrase can't be recombined: you can say これをください but not build a new sentence from it.

The step that turns phrases into language is vocabulary plus the grammar to connect it: a few hundred high-frequency words, the particles that glue them together, and verb conjugation basics. That's a few weeks of work, and it's the difference between reciting and speaking.

Set phrases get you through the first conversations; vocabulary in frequency order is what gets you past them. And if you're still on kana, start here.