Learn 10 Japanese words and phrases (2024)

FAQs

Learn 10 Japanese words and phrases? ›

About 3000-5000 words will give you 'basic fluency'.

About 3000-5000 words will give you 'basic fluency'.

Japanese Greetings for Beginners

おはようございます (ohayou gozaimasu) – Good Morning. おはよう (ohayou) – Good Morning (informal version) こんにちは (konnichi wa) – Hello. こんばんは (konban wa) – Good evening. ただいま (tadaima) – I'm home (this greeting is used when you get home and want to announce your presence)

Hara hachi bun me (腹八分目) (also spelled hara hachi bu, and sometimes misspelled hari hachi bu) is a Confucian teaching that instructs people to eat until they are 80 percent full. The Japanese phrase translates to, "Eat until you are eight parts (out of ten) full", or "belly 80 percent full".

How to learn Japanese first? ›

Do Japanese people say arigatou? Yes, they do! Arigatou on its own is a simple, somewhat casual “thank you.” That said, most people prefer doumo arigatou or arigatou gozaimasu as their standard way of saying thanks, because both of those phrases are more polite than arigatou on its own.

The 80-20 Rule

To boil it down the idea is that 20% of the efforts bring in 80% of the results. In the context of Japanese you only need to know about 20% of the language to be able to get by 80% of the time. Or at least for the core 80% of daily life.

So does it count as one word or two? It is actually pretty hard to count them, and depending on what you think counts as a word, you can get wildly different answers. This is the largest reference for Japanese words, and it lists around 500,000. The answer is probably even much higher.

A typical novel is about 80,000 words long – but may be anywhere between 60,000 to 100,000 words.

So we read あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o), then か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko), and so on.

こんにちは。

(Kon'nichiwa) which means “Hello” in Japanese. This is one of the most common words in Japanese and a great way to start a conversation with someone from Japan.

Top 20 Essential Japanese Travel Phrases:

Konnichiwa (こんにちは) – Hello. Arigatou Gozaimasu (ありがとうございます) – Thank you. Sumimasen (すみません) – Excuse me. __ o Kudasai (__をください) – I would like __, please.

七転び八起き (nana korobi ya oki)

This is the Japanese equivalent of “Don't give up, don't give in.” This Japanese saying is often recited to children to encourage them never to give up and always try their best. It encourages people to keep going, even when the going gets tough.