よろしく です

[metablue]

Sometimes people playing FFXI with me put よろしく at the end of their search comment. That makes sense as a polite greeting/thanks for reading my comment kind of thing. But then others put よろしくです. What does the です do? It doesn't seem to fit, like saying "please be kind to me is".

How does that です fit in there?

[JockZon]

It's obviously to make it more formal or I think so There is a lot of expressions where you put desu where it makes no scense just because they want to be more polite.

[metablue]

You think? I don't know. I mean, it makes sense in some cases, but there have to be rules about where to put a desu. I don't think you could put it after a verb, for example, because then you'd have two verbs.

What is よろしくanyway? Not a noun, not a verb really. A "set phrase", but where does that put it in the system of grammatical rules?

[JockZon]

I think it means "best regards" or something like that.

[metablue]

I mean, what kind of grammatical entity is "yoroshiku"? I've been thinking of "desu" as "is". But in this case it obviously isn't an "is" in the sense that I understand "is". So I have to reformulate my concept of "desu". I understand that desu makes things politer, but I thought that it was just a more polite version of "is", so you couldn't use it anywhere that an "is" doesn't make sense.

A more precise question would be:
What kinds of grammatical structures can you attach a "desu" to?

I'm trying to understand how it makes grammatical sense to say "yoroshiku desu", when "yoroshiku" seems perfectly complete in itself.

[Bueller_007]

I mean, what kind of grammatical entity is "yoroshiku"?

"Yoroshiku" is an adverb. "Yoroshii" is an honorific Japanese adjective meaning "good". So "yoroshiku" means "well". That's why Peter always translates "Yoroshiku onegai shimasu" as "Please be nice to me" or "Please treat me well"

I've been thinking of "desu" as "is". But in this case it obviously isn't an "is" in the sense that I understand "is". So I have to reformulate my concept of "desu". I understand that desu makes things politer, but I thought that it was just a more polite version of "is", so you couldn't use it anywhere that an "is" doesn't make sense

Although "desu" is the Japanese copula, equivalent to the English "to be", it is often used simply to make a sentence more polite with no other meaning whatsoever.

What kinds of grammatical structures can you attach a "desu" to?

You can add a "desu" to the end of just about anything.

For example, to say in plain Japanese, "I didn't understand", you say "wakaranakatta." This is past tense. You can make it more polite by adding "desu". It seems like a silly thing to do, because "wakaranakatta" is past tense, and "desu" is present tense, but it just makes the sentence more polite. "wakaranakatta desu" is perfectly acceptable Japanese. (The even more polite form is "wakarimasen deshita".)