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- "Nice to meet you, I'm Tanaka…
"Nice to meet you, I'm Tanaka."
Translation:はじめまして、田中です。
76 Comments
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No, when you are referring to yourself -san is not used. It is just used to politely refer to other people but never to yourself. When you say your name and want to talk politely just add -desu, and if you want to be informal just drop -desu, although it can be considered very rude to avoid the use of -desu.
Quite rude, moreso coming from a foreigner if you are talking to a native Japanese.
When you're introducing yourself?
Well, it's probably better to think of it as: adding -san when referring to yourself is akin to talking yourself up (implicitly, putting yourself above the person), rather than expressly belittling them.
think of honorifics like "san" as say "the _" like hi, i'm Tanaka The Great
very just wrong.
never say any honorifics unless showing your perceived honor level for someone else.
I chose , はじめまして、田中といいます And it was marked as correct?
Based on previous comments i thought 田中といいます meant "please call me tanaka" and was more of a request.
Whereas 田中です was a statement. "I AM tanaka"
Am i misunderstanding?
I think you might be misunderstanding a little (which is completely understandable since many comments try to simplify things as much as possible).
Functionally, 「田中です」and「田中といいます」are both statements that can be translated to "I am Tanaka." Implicit in both of these is the subject, usually assumed to be the speaker.
However, this is where grammatical differences come in. In the case of「田中です」, explicitly including a subject, e.g. かれ(he/him) or かのじょ(she/her), simply changes the translation to "he/she is Tanaka."
For「田中といいます」, it's not so simple. いいます can also be written as 言います, which means "to say". Basically, what is implicit in this case is something along the lines of "Tanaka is what I say about myself", which often becomes translated to "please call me Tanaka (because that is what I call myself)". It's considered more polite than です because it's very deferential, like you're saying "I call myself Tanaka, but you can call me as you like" whereas です is kind of saying "this is what I am (like it or not)." The tricky thing about といいます is that it's exactly the way you would quote what someone else says. Therefore, if you change the subject (in order to introduce someone else), the sentence changes to "he/she says "Tanaka" ", but no longer functions as an introduction, rather an introduction of the strange things he/she likes to say. That's why it is only ever used to introduce yourself.
To explicitly ask someone to call you by a certain name, you need to use a slightly more advanced grammar structure. For example, my name is Joshua, but I prefer people to call me Josh. So when I introduce myself, I would say「ジョシュアといいます。でも(But)ジョシュと呼んでください(yonde kudasai call please)」
Sorry for such a long comment, but it's hard to concisely explain all the nuance using just text.
You did great eith the comment the more explaination the better. Im a beginner and some of the things you said really helped.
Extremely helpful thank you! I also go by a shortened version of my name so this will definitely come in handy to know!
Ah, thank you for the explanation. I'm cycling through old lessons and I was a bit confused why it got flagged incorrectly in this sense.
I'm Tanaka, or Call me Tanaka . Both of this structures do the job of introducing yourself.
When do you have to put "は"? I mean, when do you must add it ad a "topic marker"?
Whenever you want to add more context. For example, マリアです on its own could mean "I'm Maria" or "It's Maria" or "She's Maria". But adding 私は beforehand makes it absolutely certain you are referring to yourself. It is unnecessary in many cases.
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So, just to make sure i understand, without 私は it can also mean 'that person over there is Maria'?
Yes, it's all based on context. If you were answering a question like "Who is that person?", you could answer with "Maria desu" and it would be clear that you are answering the question and meaning "that person is Maria"
A good way to remember WA usage is to imagine it means "As for... <the thing I just said before WA>"
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Somehow I got this right first time (word picking in Japanese), yet I have absolutely no idea what my answer sounds like.
Im so frickin glad im weaboo enough to remember certain intrinsic things about japanese otherwise i would hate this, lol
と here is a particle, and it indicates the thing before it as "quoted information". So, in (私は)田中といいます, it means As for me, I am called "Tanaka".
Honestly といいます isn't really used by native speakers. とうもします is more appropriate if you want to be more polite than [name] + です.
Shouldn't adding ~san to tanaka be interchangeable since it's a common honorific?
Think of it like Mr/Mrs/Ms. If you were introducing someone, you might say, "This is Ms. Johnson." But you wouldn't say, "I'm Ms. Johnson." Here the context is a self introduction, so no ~san.
Exactly, it's an honorific, as in it's supposed to convey honor to the person it refers to. Referring to yourself as -san, or any other honorific for that matter, is seen as incredibly conceited and it's never done (since Japanese culture emphasizes humility).
If the person I was meeting was called Tanaka (not me), would I say '田中さん、はじめまして'?
Yes, you could!
Personally, I would say 「田中さんですね？はじめまして」 if they just introduced themselves, which lets me confirm that I heard their name correctly, I am pronouncing it correctly, and they are ok with me using the さん suffix.
です is the polite form of だ. You should generally use です with strangers or people you aren't close to.
Am i the only one that is learning japanese to be able to easily watch anime?
i know :( its an ok app, but it kind of just expects us to know things. that really isn't ok, since many people here are fresh and new beginners, including myself. im so confused with all of the kanji sooo early in the lessons!
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Hajimemashite is the "te" form of the verb "hajimeru" or "hajimemasu". The verb means to start, to begin. As the "te" from may be thought of as the imperative of the verb, hajimemashite may be literally translated as "do begin!", or "let's start (our relations)!" and then "nice to meet you" for the first time you meet someone. As for yoroshiku, it may be translated as the adverb of the adjetive yoroshii or yoi, a form of "ii", that means good, well. So yoroshiku may be understood as "do me well", "treat me fine (as I will treat you)". Usually comes followed by onegaishimasu, meaning "I beg you", or just "please".
Can someone break down the sentence for me? I don't know what word belongs to which part of Japanese
はじめまして = a set phrase/greeting used when meeting someone for the first time; no direct English translation, but usually translated as "nice to meet you"
田中 (たなか) = a common Japanese surname (family name); Japanese people are usually only called by their first/given names by family and close friends
です = the copula/verb "to be", usually being translated as "is/am"; it equates the object (in this case, "Tanaka") with the subject (in this case, the implied "I")
A little IPA under the answers dictionary style (after getting them right) would go a long way- knowing what the words look like is one thing, but being able to say them well would be great to. This goes for languages with Roman alphabets too (Irish, for example, could use it).
I know Japanese hiragana is phonetic, but its not quite- it sounds like 'u' is largely unexpressed or at least unstressed at the end of words, for example.
You mean 田中といいます, and this has already been answered on this discussion page. I explained it in quite a bit of detail in an earlier comment to @Digicrests 's question. Go have a read.
Taro Tanaka from Drrr...
I recognize the Kanji for Tanaka easily because of that.
Almost all Japanese names are written with kanji. Generally only foreign names are written in katakana.
Realized that san after your name when talking about yourself is considered rude in Japan
