はじめまして VS よろしくおねがいします

[jocu196766]

こんにちは。Neil　です。

I'm pretty new to jpod101 (under a month) and I'm about 15 lessons into absolute beginner season 1. One thing that came to my attention once I started gathering vocabulary for flashcards is that hajimemashite and yoroshiku onegai shimasu both have the same translation on their flashcards, which is "Nice to meet you." Not only is this confusing because I seem to remember the lessons stating that yoroshiku onegai shimasu was translated into something like "please be kind to me" but when I'm going my flashcards and its asking me to translate "Nice to meet you" I feel like I'm having to guess as to which answer they want, not necessarily which answer is correct.

Can someone help shed some light on this?

ありがとございます！

[mmmason8967]

はじめました is a greeting that is used when you meet someone for the first time. It means something like "this is the first time".

よろしくおねがいします is a greeting that means, as you said, something like "please be kind to me".

As you know, we don't have equivalent phrases in English. The nearest would be something along the lines of "nice to meet you" or "it's a pleasure to meet you". Hence the flashcards having the same English phrase for two different Japanese phrases. It happens with other words: the Japanese word for "mother" can be okaasan or haha, for example.

Of course, when you're doing the flashcards you can't know which word or phrase is going to be the right answer. But think of it as a feature, not a bug: it's good to be aware that there are two correct answers, and the flashcards are clearly succeeding in making you aware of this.

What I do is produce both answers for flashcards like these and count it as correct if one of the two is on the other side.

マイケル

[jocu196766]

TY for the response. I guess what I had been doing is the same as you, just giving them both as answers. Though I think I'll just make the mental adjustment that はじめまして is for first time meetings. Thanks for the clarification.

[community.japanese]

jocu196766-san, マイケルsan,
kon'nichiwa

You're both right; because of cultural difference, we don't actually have perfect translations for those two expressions.
Like マイケルsan wrote (thank you for your help as always!), はじめまして is a greeting when you meet someone
for the first time.
Now, よろしくおねがいします is a bit more difficult to translate. This really doens't have a good translation.
When it's used in a first-time meeting, it's often translated as "please be nice/kind to me", and in some other
conversations (at different situation), it could be just "please".
After all, this よろしくおねがいします simply is used when you're asking a favour (in very polite way) of any kind,
and you're counting on the other person for what you've asked.

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[jocu196766]

奈津子さん,　Ty for your response as well. It seems to clear up my confusion a bit better. When using よろしくおねがいします as "please", I thought I saw that when used as "please" then you would shorten it to おねがいします　and drop the よろしく part...or in some cases just use よろしく. Am I taking that wrong or is that the general gist of it?

Thanks for the responses. I love this site!

[community.japanese]

jocu196766-san,
you're very right!
The politest ways is to say よろしくおねがいします。 but おねがいします can be used as polite enough way
to say "please" just in the same way. When it's very casual, it becomes only よろしく or even just おねがい
In my opinion, よろしく has more connotation of "I'm counting on you" and おねがい has more of "please do me a favour".
When you ask someone a favour, and the other one doesn't give you a straight "okay/yes", you'd proably say
"pleeeaaaaaaase", and that's when you can use only おねがい(します), not よろしく part.
よろしく part can be added or used when the other person is already accepted the favour to do, or the other
person almost automatically says yes for such favour.
In the first meating, you can use this よろしくおねがいします to say the politest way, and usually no one would say
"no way, I'm not gonna be friend with you", right
If such greetings of first meeting is amongst friends, it can be also shortened and said casually よろしく～ or
よろしくね

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[jocu196766]

奈津子さん、
ありがとございます！　That was very help full. Much appreciated.

[community.japanese]

jocu196766-san,
どういたしまして！
Glad I could help

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com