Learn about greeting customers
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| Today we will cover a greeting you’ll hear when you enter a business establishment. In Japanese, the polite greeting when entering the place of business is Irasshaimase. Irasshaimase. Let’s break it down by syllable I-ra-ssha-i-ma-se. Irasshaimase. The first word irasshai means come, come, come. So this phrase is used to mean basically welcome. Thanks for coming and they will say it right as you walk in the door. Some places, you even have a bell that rings when someone walks in so that all the store employees know to say Irasshaimase in Unison. It’s actually kind of nuts. You walk in there and you feel like a queen. I like it. Now Irasshaimase is a formal polite way of saying this. |
| If you go to a more mom n pop chain or if you go to a café or a restaurant that you frequent and the people know you, they might get a little bit more casual and simply say, Irasshai which is the first half without mase. That’s just the casual way of saying come on in. Now what do you do when someone actually says that to you. It would be kind of nice if you look at them, give them a smile or if you just acknowledge the fact that they said that. If you want to be super polite, you can even bow to them a little bit. |
| I am sure they will appreciate it. Most of the time though when you get used to it, you just walk by as if nothing happened. Unfortunately when you have been living in Japan for a long time, you kind of lose that appreciation but you since you are going to be in Japan for the first time can acknowledge it, smile, leave a good impression of yourself and your country. Okay so to close our today’s lesson, let’s practice what you’ve just learned. I will give you the English equivalent of the phrase and you are responsible for shouting it out loud in Japanese. You got that? I will give you a few seconds before I give you the answer. So good luck Ganbatte kudasai. Welcome said when entering a business establishment, the polite version Irasshaimase. Irasshaimase. Irasshaimase, the casual form Irasshai. Irasshai. Irasshai. All right, that’s going to do it for today. See you later which in Japanese is Matane. |
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