How to introduce yourself in Japanese

Recently I was gifted several figures by the generous Mr Danny Choo and I had an idea one evening to use these figures for creating every-day scenes for Japanese lessons. This way I not only make the lessons a little more interesting for others but the action of creating the images helps to give the words and phrases I'm learning some personal context.

Personal context is very valuable when learning a language. It's much easier to recall a word from a fun or embarrassing memory rather than a word you revised from a book. Another benefit of writing these lessons is that if I make a mistake I hope someone will kindly comment and correct me. For both of us this will create another useful memory for recalling the phrase later. Also these articles will evolve over time as I correct my mistakes and learn new phrases.

So let's get started on the first Nendoroid Nihongo lesson!

From left to right we have みゆき, つるや and the mystery figure in the collection with no name so I've called him ネオ ^^ You can get these and larger types of Nendoroids over at J-List

You need to know the kana (hiragana and katakana) before we start. I personally think if you want to learn Japanese seriously you should avoid romaji at all costs. Plus the kana are easy to learn, so there's no excuse not to learn them. First I'll give you examples and then I'll explain the parts of the sentences.

The very first thing I learned in Japanese was how to introduce myself. I can't remember which textbook or site I learned it from, but I was of the understanding that the correct way for all situations was to introduce myself with:

はじめまして、私はクリスです。よろしくおねがいします。

This roughly translates to:

I'm glad to meet you (for the first time), I am Chris. Please treat me well.

Let's break the sentence down:

• はじめまして means "I'm glad to meet you" and should only be said the first time you meet someone.
  
• 私はクリスです means "I am Chris".
  • 私 (わたし) is the feminine way of saying "I" or "me" but is used for both men and women in polite situations. The masculine way of saying "I" or "me" is 僕 (ぼく) but since it's more casual than 私 it's not used in this case.
    
  • は, pronounced わ when used as a particle, is the topic marker particle and comes after the topic, in this case the topic is myself (私).
    
  • クリス is my name in katakana.
    
  • です politely ends the sentence and can be described as meaning "It is the case that", but I'm not sure there is a clear translation for it in English.
    
  
  
  
• よろしく in this case is a casual way of saying "Treat me well" or "Be kind to me".
  
• おねがいします means "Please", so よろしくおねがいします means "Please treat me well" or "Please be kind to me" and is considered polite.

This is a very polite way of introducing yourself, and as I have gradually learned, probably only best used in business or if you're meeting the emperor. In Japanese you can often drop the subject being discussed so you don't even need to say 私. So let's learn some other ways to introduce yourself.

The more natural way to introduce yourself politely would be:

はじめまして、クリスです。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

To be more casual you can drop the どうぞ:

はじめまして、クリスです。よろしくおねがいします。

And to be even more casual you can say:

はじめまして、クリスです。どうぞよろしく。

However you probably still want to be polite when you meet people for the first time, so the first and second options are your best choice.

This roughly translates to:

I'm glad to meet you (for the first time), I am Chris. Pleased to meet you.

The only new word here is: どうぞ, which like おねがいします also means "Please".

If you're only briefly meeting someone, say you're walking down a 商店街 (しょうてんがい) "Shopping street" and someone stops briefly to greet your friend and your friend quickly introduces you, you can just say a typical daily greeting, such as:

こんにちは

Or if you are introduced and expect to get into a conversation with this person you can say:

はじめまして

However, one of the major things I've learned whilst being here in Japan is just to say at least something. The worst thing you can do is question what to say in a particular situation and end up saying nothing or mumbling your introduction.

It's something I still fight to overcome now, but I'm getting better at just saying the first thing that comes to mind. If I make a mistake I have yet to come across anyone who has been offended (at least not visibly) and it often breaks the ice and gives everyone a giggle.

Jamaipanese said on Mon 2009/06/15 16:10 JST:

great refresher course for me Chris

congrats on getting the figures - you are one lucky chap

Chris Gaunt said on Mon 2009/06/15 16:26 JST:

Cheers. As long as the figures are cute and aren't half-naked the wife lets me bring them home ^^

Alpharalpha said on Mon 2009/06/15 16:37 JST:

This is an excellent use of nendoroid figure, cool!

Jamaipanese said on Mon 2009/06/15 16:37 JST:

lol my gf wouldn't have a problem (i think) fortunately I am not a fan of half naked figures. I love Gundam figures and females with huge weapons

yonasu said on Mon 2009/06/15 21:40 JST:

This is great Chris! I'm working on something similar, both with figures and drawings. And congrats on getting them from Danny Choo, and I hope the half-naked figure ban is mutual, don't let her have half-naked posters of Brad Pitt!^^

Declan said on Tue 2009/06/16 00:30 JST:

I'd love to see more of these, great work Chris.

Observer said on Tue 2009/06/16 06:08 JST:

Thank you, I really needed to learn greetings. Hey! ネオ is actually Sebastian, from Lucky Star! (I forget his real name but that's his nickname) :D

Chris Gaunt said on Tue 2009/06/16 14:53 JST:

Thanks for the info on the name. I'll use his proper name in future ^^

Observer (もう一回！) said on Tue 2009/06/16 15:05 JST:

Nay, 'twas naught but an observation. If you must, I gladly accept your gratitude! =ω=

caughtredhanded said on Tue 2009/06/16 20:30 JST:

Thanks for the great refresher course, always worth going back to basics.

justin said on Wed 2009/06/17 00:18 JST:

These are very nice, Chris. Thanks for the information. Looking forward to reading more of these in the future ;)

syrup16g said on Thu 2009/07/16 06:34 JST:

"私 (わたし) is the feminine way of saying “I” or “me” but is used for both men and women in polite situations."

私 isn't feminine, あたし is.

"The masculine way of saying “I” or “me” is 僕 (ぼく) but since it’s more casual than 私 it’s not used in this case."

僕 is more juvenile than masculine. 俺 is the more "masculine" word which you would (hopefully) be saying in colloquial situations.

"です politely ends the sentence ... I’m not sure there is a clear translation for it in English."

A copula that predicates sentences.

YuKi-To said on Thu 2009/08/27 20:14 JST:

the real name is Minoru Shiraishi ^^

lol Neo XD