Japanese Greetings for Every Time of Day

Japanese has separate greetings for morning, daytime and evening. On top of those sits a second layer of set phrases tied to places: a pair for leaving the house, a pair for coming home, and a whole vocabulary for the office. The four time-of-day greetings are the ones you'll need on your first day, so they come first.

Morning: おはよう

おはようございます (ohayou gozaimasu) is the polite form, for teachers, colleagues, neighbours and strangers. With family and friends it shortens to おはよう (ohayou). The word comes from 早い (はやい, hayai), "early", so underneath it you're saying something like "you're up early".

There's no fixed cut-off, but by 10 or 11 most people have moved on to こんにちは. One exception is worth knowing. In some workplaces, especially ones that run on shifts such as restaurants and TV studios, people say おはようございます the first time they see each other that day, even if it's six in the evening.

Daytime and evening: こんにちは and こんばんは

こんにちは (konnichiwa) and こんばんは (konbanwa) have no casual version and no extra-polite version. One form does for everyone. They also keep a little distance, which has a consequence textbooks tend to skip: you don't normally say them to people in your own circle. Nobody greets their mother with こんにちは, and colleagues who pass in the corridor at 2 p.m. say お疲れ様です instead (more on that below). こんにちは is for neighbours, shop staff, people you're meeting, and anyone else outside your household or team.

Close friends usually skip the set greeting and open with やあ (yaa), おっす (ossu, mostly between men), or just the other person's name.

Why it's は and not わ

Both words end in a "wa" sound, but they're spelled with は, the hiragana normally read "ha". That's because this は is the topic particle, which is always written は and pronounced "wa". こんにちは is 今日は, "as for today", the front half of a longer greeting along the lines of 今日はご機嫌いかがですか (こんにちは ごきげん いかがですか, konnichi wa gokigen ikaga desu ka), "how are you today?". The rest fell away and the opening stuck. こんばんは is 今晩は, "as for this evening", by the same route.

You'll see こんにちわ in casual messages online. It's a misspelling, sometimes a deliberate cute one, and it'll be marked wrong on a test. Our post on Japanese particles explains what は does in a full sentence.

Night: おやすみなさい

おやすみなさい (oyasuminasai) comes from 休む (やすむ, yasumu), to rest, and it's closer to "sleep well" than to a hello. You say it when someone is heading to bed, at the end of a late phone call, or when you part ways late at night. You don't say it when you arrive somewhere at night. That's still こんばんは. The casual form is おやすみ (oyasumi).

Leaving home and coming back

These four come as two call-and-response pairs, and in most Japanese households they're said every day. If you stay with a host family, they're the phrases you'll use most.

いってきます is literally "I'll go and come back" (行って来ます), and いってらっしゃい answers with "go and come back". ただいま means "just now" and is short for ただいま帰りました (ただいま かえりました, tadaima kaerimashita), "I've just come back". おかえりなさい is "welcome back", often shortened to おかえり (okaeri).

None of this is limited to home. Step out of the office to visit a client and you can say いってきます to your team, and you'll get いってらっしゃい in return. When you go into someone else's home, the phrase is お邪魔します (おじゃまします, ojama shimasu), literally "I'm going to be in your way".

At work: お疲れ様です

お疲れ様です (おつかれさまです, otsukaresama desu) is built on 疲れる (つかれる, tsukareru), to get tired, and it acknowledges that the other person has been working hard. English has nothing quite like it. It does several jobs:

• A hello between colleagues during the day, in the corridor or the lift.
• The opening line of an internal email, chat message or phone call.
• A thank-you when someone finishes a task or comes back from a meeting.
• A goodbye at the end of the day, usually in the past tense: お疲れ様でした (おつかれさまでした, otsukaresama deshita).

If you leave while others are still working, say お先に失礼します (おさきに しつれいします, osaki ni shitsurei shimasu), "excuse me for leaving before you". The people staying answer お疲れ様でした. Among friends and teammates of the same rank, the whole thing shrinks to お疲れ (おつかれ, otsukare).

A similar phrase, ご苦労様です (ごくろうさまです, gokurousama desu), is traditionally said by a senior person to a junior one, so don't use it on your boss. With clients and people from other companies, emails and calls open with お世話になっております (おせわに なっております, osewa ni natte orimasu), roughly "thank you for your continued support".

First meetings, goodbyes and the rest

• はじめまして (hajimemashite) is said once, the first time you meet someone. Your name usually follows, and then よろしくお願いします (よろしく おねがいします, yoroshiku onegai shimasu), which asks the other person to treat you well.
• お久しぶりです (おひさしぶりです, ohisashiburi desu) means "it's been a while". With friends, 久しぶり (hisashiburi) is enough.
• お元気ですか (おげんきですか, ogenki desu ka) is "are you well?". It's for someone you haven't seen in some time. Unlike "how are you?" in English, it isn't something you ask a person you saw yesterday.
• さようなら (sayounara) is the textbook goodbye, and it's rarer than you'd think. It can sound final, as though you won't meet again for a long time. Schoolchildren say it to their teachers at the end of the day, but adults mostly use じゃあね (jaa ne), またね (mata ne) or また明日 (また あした, mata ashita, "see you tomorrow") with friends, and 失礼します (しつれいします, shitsurei shimasu) in formal settings.
• もしもし (moshi moshi) is hello on the phone. It isn't used to greet someone face to face.
• いらっしゃいませ (irasshaimase) is "welcome", called out by staff when you walk into a shop or restaurant. You aren't expected to answer. A nod is plenty.

A small nod of the head goes with nearly all of these. Thank-yous have their own range of politeness levels, which we go through in how to say thank you in Japanese.

Common questions