Thursday, September 25, 2008

Learn Basic Japanese

Learn Basic Japanese - Watching your Ps and Qs

Learning about Japanese culture will help you to being able to learn basic Japanese more quickly. This will keep you in line with how the Japanese greet each other and the prevalent emphasis in Japanese culture of being polite and humble.

In Japanese culture, greeting someone is considered a MUST when you encounter people as you move through your day. In Western culture, this is equivalent to saying please and thank you. Below are three greetings:

Ohayō gozaimasu = greeting in the morning
Konnichiwa = greeting during the day
Konbanwa = greeting after dark

Whenever you are addressing or speaking to someone there are different levels of formality and politeness in Japanese. Therefore, in Japanese you must always be conscious of the social relationship between you and the person you are speaking to (friend, family member, professor, doctor, stranger, boss, colleague) .

The morning greeting Ohayō gozaimasu is a good example to show the different levels of formality and politeness:

Every morning you go to work, you greet your colleagues by saying Ohayō gozaimasu .
Every morning you go to the kitchen to have your breakfast, you greet your family by saying Ohayō.
To a few of your colleagues you are very friendly with, you greet them saying Ohayō.
To your boss or your teacher, you greet them by saying Ohayō gozaimasu.
To a stranger you walked past on the street in the morning, you greet him/her saying Ohayō gozaimasu.

Note: Thankfully for Konnichiwa and Konbanwa, there's only one version for everyone.

Learn Basic Japanese

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Japanese is a very phonetic language. So learning basic phrases can be surprisingly easy for native English speakers. Spending time learning a bit Japanese through independent study or a class can have a real pay off in improving the traveler’s comfort level. Politeness is important to the Japanese. And cleanliness is supreme. Knowing cultural do’s and don’ts can make a big difference in creating a positive experience while in Japan.

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