I wish spelling things like this was available in the hints for all the exercises. Sometimes it isn't clear what is being said, but seeing it like this makes it make sense.

Yes! Japanese periods are little circles, I love it

Yes. But its ok if you dont use it as well

It's okay to translate it to 'hello' since in English when we meet someone/introduce ourselves we say, 'Hello/Hi,'

A: Hello, I'm John. B: Hi, I'm Maria. Nice to meet you.

I would translate this to:

A: Hajimemashite. John desu. B: Hajimemashite. Maria desu.(Yoroshiku onegaishimasu).

You are right though in that "Hajimemashite" is only if it's your first meeting, so like "Hello (for the first time)."

I was told that you would use Yoroshiku when you meet someone the first time. Hajimemashita is used when you've already met but never really introduced yourself, if that makes sense.

Like if i said, "nice to meet you" after speaking with you for the entire day. Iunnohow true that is though.

The full sentense is 初めまして（お目にかかります）、よろしくお願いします。 which literally means "It is the first time (that we meet), please treat me well. Japanese is famous for not saying things in full so this sentense becomes 初めまして.

it does literally translate to "the first time meeting" its a colloquialism in japanese meaning nice to meet you (for the first time) but はじめ is used to describe the first time for other things as well

Hello there! Excellent! I'm sure that this would be a helpful reference, to make it look better, you should give 2 new lines (press enter two times) to create a new paragraph. I'm sure it would look better that way. You can edit it if you are using the web UI. :)

P.S: technically "des" is "desu", although it is pronounced that way in natural speech! :P

(Edit: Good job! Thanks for the indentation on request)

I can't understand how Naka - 中 - ちゅう? sounds like that when Chūgoku - 中国 - ちゅうごく sounds so different. When I look at ちゅう I think Chyuuu , like the first part of Chugoko. Why does it change phonetically to Naka?

I'm not an expert, but I think I can help shed some light on this.

To properly discuss these two, you have to be aware of two kanji, 初 and 始. Both of them can be used in hajime, as 初め and 始め, but as far as I know, they carry subtly different meanings. (I think these are both "verb stems" which behave like nouns).

The one your karate instructor would have used is 始め while はじめまして is generally considered to be derived from 初め.

初 means "start, beginning, first" but with an emphasis on "new beginnings". I'm cherry-picking a bit here, but it is used in words like 初雪 (hatsu yuki = "the first snow of a season"), 初心者 (sho shin sha = "a beginner"), and 初対面 (sho tai men = "first interview", or colloquially "first time meeting the in-laws").

On the other hand, 始 doesn't really have that nuance; it simply means "commence, begin". Cherry-picking again, but it appears in words like 開始 (kai shi = "commencement, start"), 年始 (nen shi = "the start of the year"), and 始業 (shi gyou = "start of work").

Yes, it is.

You can also think of it as はじめ being the "verb stem" and まして as a polite て-form conjugation.

That moment when you realize you've gone from asking beginner questions to answering them! Hahaha! :D

No the verb is written as 初める

No, unfortunately there's a lot more to choosing the correct kanji than simply have the same pronunciation (and indeed, the pronunciation of a specific kanji can, and often does, change depending on what other kanji you put it together with).

Using the wrong kanji can be at best: a clever play on words, at worst: an insulting misunderstanding, or most commonly: a nonsensical phrase which doesn't mean anything.

In large part, it comes down to recognizing particles, such as は, を, に, etc., which indicate the subject, object, time, and so on. These are exclusively written in hiragana. Recognizing verbs and their various conjugated forms becomes important too as you get more advanced.

Unfortunately, most of this course continues to use hiragana to spell difficult kanji, making it harder to pick out the particles. Kanji, once you get used to them, are actually very useful for identifying the "words" in a sentence. For example (a deliberately extreme), correctly using all the relevant kanji: 「この物は野田君の果物だ」(meaning "This thing is Noda's fruit", where Noda is a relatively common Japanese surname). The units of この物 (this thing), 野田君 (a young boy named Noda), and 果物 (fruit) are all easily identifiable. The は indicates the subject, の the ownership of 果物, and だ is the plain copula/version of です. If this was all written in hiragana...「このものはのだくんのくだものだ」

There are several ways:

1. こんにちは ("konnichiwa", casual hello)

2. はじめまして ("hajimemashite", meeting for the first time, formal)

3. よろしく("yoroshiku", formal)

4. おっす ("ossu", very informal)

5. おはよう ("ohayou", good morning)

6. こんばんは ("konnbanwa", good evening)

7. モシモシ ("moshi-moshi", hello on the phone)

8. オイ ("Oi", extremely informal, to catch attention)

Right, Japanese has no spaces between words. You tell the different words from the different writing styles and particles that help separate them.

Copying from my post in another thread...

(Reference: https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/research/report/2014_09/20140905.pdf page 86)

The vowel of き、く、し、す、しゅ、ち、つ、ひ、ふ、ぴ、ぷ are not pronounced if it is followed by k/s/t/p sound. e.g.

• きく（菊） -> k ku
• たしかめる（確かめる） -> tash kameru
• がくしゃ（学者） -> gak sha

However, The vowel of し、す、しゅ are still pronounced if it is followed by s sound. e.g.

• しそん（子孫） -> shison
• すさる（退る） -> susaru
• すし（鮨） -> sushi
• しゅしょく（主食） -> shushoku
• ししゅう（詩集） -> shishuu
• ししん（私信） -> shishin
• すすき（薄） -> sus ki
• しさい（司祭） -> shisai

If you are using Windows IME like me, 初めまして is the default form for はじめまして. You can press F6 to force the input to be all hiragana. If you press F7 it will become katakana - ハジメマシテ.

I think they use the small circle as a period instead of just a dot like in english.

ぢ is only used in a limited places like

• ちぢむ shrink
• はなぢ nasal bleeding
• そこぢから latent power

For most other cases you will see じ

は is "ha" when it is part of a word and "wa" when it is being used as a topic marker.

When the language went under reform many of the kana's pronunciations changed. The kana は, へ and を (Wa, E, and O) became Ha, He and Wo; but they were already in common usage as particles.
Most words are written with kanji so simply changing the spelling for how a kanji was pronounced wasn't a huge deal; but changing the particles and re-teaching an entire population and changing all of the written texts to completely new particles would have been a massive amount of work. So they simply kept the original readings and added their new readings onto them to make it easier for the general public to adapt.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. If you are not comfortable yet with reading the script then you may not be ready to move on to words and phrases like this yet. After all you wouldn't expect someone learning English to be reading before learning the alphabet, right? I would say being able to read the script and put it to use at this point is a pretty good incentive, for me at least. What would you rather see?

I think you may be mixing Hajimemashite up with Yoroshiku onegaishimasu, adverb form of 宜しい "good, well" + お願いします "please". Though this phrase can be used in many situations such as when asking for a favor, not just when meeting someone. A more casual version is simply "yoroshiku".

Hajimemashite is a form of 初め- "beginning, start" / 初めて "for the first time". It's a common expression most closely translated to "nice to meet you" as both phrases roughly have the same meaning and are only used for the first time you meet someone.

The acceptable answers for questions are always evolving and accept far more variety now than they used to. Rather than fill the sentence discussions with complaints the contributors are unlikely to see, if you think your translation should be considered correct you can simply hit the "My answer should be accepted" on the question for the contributors to review and add to the course.

• Hajimemashite, typically written as はじめまして, is a greeting you give to someone when you meet them for the first time. It's generally thought to be derived from the very formal sentence: 初めましてお目にかかります, which literally means "for the first time, I meet you., though it is only used as a platitude nowadays.
• Hajimemashita, typically written as 始めました, is a polite past tense verb meaning "started, began". Generally you would know from context what started, or you would preface the verb with that information. It's derived from the root verb 始める"to start, to begin".

Neither phrase has a direct english equivalent so different sources will translate them a bit differently. Though Genki's choice certainly is a bit confusing.

Hajimemashite roughly translates to " We are meeting for the first time" from the verb hajimeru - to begin. You would only use it when introducing yourself to someone new.

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is roughly "please treat me favorably" from the adverb form of Yoroshii - fine/well and onegaishimasu - verb to humbly request. This is usually used at the end of your introduction to someone, as a sort of way of requesting your relationship from then on be well, but can also be used with people you already know when asking for favors.

I think some versions of Duo allow you to type answers in, but you could just write out your answers on a separate piece of paper or in a book, as well as arranging the blocks.

Yes, often when there are only a few kanji in the sentence. Similar to Korean. But spaces are optional.

full stop

Yes. You would use both はじめまして (hajimemashite) and よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu) when you meet someone for the first time, but at different points of the conversation.

はじめまして is only ever used as a greeting or opening to the conversation, usually before giving your name. よろしくお願いします (or more informally, just よろしく) translates to "I wish you will treat me well" (but is nowhere near that stiff in Japanese), and can be inserted anywhere after introductions are over and usually (also) used as a closing greeting.

よろしく also has other uses outside of self-introductions, since it is literally just the adverb "well, kindly".

I believe you've mixed up はじめまして with よろしく (おねがいします）

はじめまして - from verb 始める - to start, begin - "meeting for the first time"

よろしく - adverb form of adjective 宜しい - 'well, good, fine'
おねがいします - noun お願い "request/wish" + verb する "to do" - lit. "to do request" or "please do for me"
よろしくおねがいします - "please treat me good/well"

When translating between English and Japanese, it's very difficult to maintain the literal meaning of the original sentence and not sound awkward or incorrect.

Literally, you can see that はじめまして carries the meaning of "first time to meet you", but you would never say that as a greeting in English. Both はじめまして and "Nice to meet you" are greetings you use when you meet someone for the first time, so they are appropriate translations.

どうぞよろしくおねがいします is NOT nice to meet you. Please read the discussion thread. This is already discussed in depth.