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Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody! Hiroko here. Welcome to Absolute Beginner Questions Answered by Hiroko, where I’ll answer some of *your* most common Japanese questions.
The question for this lesson is… How do I use YOROSHIKU?
“Yoroshiku onegai shimasu” is translated as “pleased to meet you” when it’s used in your self introduction. And you also might have seen “douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.” in business situations. How would this sentence be translated, and what does “yoroshiku” mean on its own?
The basic meaning of ‘yoroshiku’ is ‘thank you in advance’.
Suppose that you asked a favor of someone and wanted to say ‘thank you in advance’. You might want to say ‘arigatou gozaimasu’ to mean ‘thank you’. However, this is when you should use ‘yoroshiku onegai shimasu’ to mean “thank you in advance.”
When you say “yoroshiku onegai shimasu” when introducing yourself, you say it to mean “pleased to meet you”, as you know. It implies “thank you for your favors in advance.”
When you start to work on a project with your colleagues or team members, you should also say ‘yoroshiku onegai shimasu’. It’s said to mean “thank you in advance for all your cooperation,” but naturally it’s translated as “I am looking forward to working with you” or “I‘m excited to be part of this team”.
The natural English translation of “yoroshiku onegai shimasu” depends on the context, but the base meaning is, “thank you in advance.”
Then ‘yoroshiku onegai shimasu’ and ‘douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu’ have the same meaning, but the difference is politeness level.
We have a rule saying that ‘the longer, the more polite’ so ‘douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu’ is longer than the other, making it a more polite expression.
Here’s one more example. When you post a question to our website and you want to say “thank you in advance”, you can use ‘yoroshiku onegai shimasu’.
I hope this makes sense to you and you’re able to use "yoroshiku onegai shimasu” correctly from now on!
Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them!
またね！

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