Japanese Greetings: Pick by Time of Day and Who You Face

Japanese greetings are set phrases, and the moment you are in decides which one you say. The second question is who you are facing, and that one sets how the word ends.

Two people at the same moment, one going out and one staying in:

いってきます。 (ittekimasu.)

I'm off. (leaving home)

いってらっしゃい。 (itterasshai.)

Take care. (to the one heading out)

Use these words at home, at work, and anywhere you pass someone you know. Do not swap a departure phrase for an arrival phrase, because each one belongs to a single direction.

This note covers which greeting to say and how polite to make it. What you say after the greeting belongs to the scene you are in, and the field note on phrases by scene covers those.

A greeting in Japanese is not picked from a list. Two questions narrow it to one, and you answer them in that order.

The first question is which moment of the day you are in. For the three words that name a part of the day, that means the hour. The second is who is in front of you, and that one sets the ending rather than the word.

Neither question asks what you mean. The words are fixed, so saying the expected one at the expected time matters more than any wording of your own.

That is what a set phrase is. It is not a sentence you build, and the work is in matching rather than in wording. So greetings are quick to learn and hard to improvise.

It also means the set is small. What the moment and the person ask for fits on one page, and the rest is repetition.

The Moment column answers the first question, and the Who it fits column answers the second. What you say holds the words themselves.

Here is each moment with the words that belong to it, and the people they are for:

The moments that name a part of the day are settled by the hour alone. You do not choose between them, because the time has already chosen.

The others are settled by an event instead. Going out, being seen off, coming back, and turning in each bring their own words, whatever the hour is.

So the table holds two kinds of moment. One kind you read off the day, and the other you read off what is happening in front of you.

One more word belongs to neither kind. 失礼しますしつれいします (shitsureishimasu) is what you say on leaving a place, and it covers both goodbye and excuse me.

What the table does not settle is how polite to make it. One of these words has a plain version and a polite one, and the second question is what chooses between them.

Time of day picks the word, and the three divisions are wider than their names suggest.

おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu) belongs to the early part of the day. Anyone you meet in that stretch of the day gets it, at home or outside.

こんにちは (konnichiwa) is good from late morning until dark. That range is wider than the afternoon, which is the part most people get wrong.

The width is the point. A greeting in the middle of the afternoon and a greeting before noon are the same word.

The trouble comes from the usual translation. こんにちは (konnichiwa) is given as hello, and hello has no hours attached to it.

こんばんは (konbanwa) starts once it is dark, and that is the whole of the condition. You are reading the sky rather than a number.

None of the three asks you to judge the person. The hour is public, both of you already know what it is, and neither of you has to decide anything.

That is why the first question is the easier one. You can be sure of it before you are anywhere near sure of the second.

At work the first greeting of your day is おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu), whatever hour it starts.

Coworkers greet each other with it on their first arrival. An evening shift gets the same word as a morning one.

So it is the workplace hello rather than only a morning one. Here the first question is answered by your arrival instead of by the hour.

What it marks is the arrival itself. Once you have said it to someone on a given day, it has done its work.

The second question does not change here. The polite ending stays on, because the people around you at work are outside your close friends.

Some greetings come in twos, and each of the two has one direction. The person moving says one, and the person staying says the other.

Leaving the house is one of the two pairs. You say いってきます (ittekimasu), and whoever stays answers いってらっしゃい (itterasshai).

Coming back is the other. You say ただいま (tadaima), and the people already inside answer おかえりなさい (okaerinasai).

Said from inside the house, the answer is a single word:

おかえりなさい。 (okaerinasai.)

Welcome back.

The two do not trade places. ただいま (tadaima) belongs to the one coming home, and おかえりなさい (okaerinasai) to the one already inside.

Swapping those two is the common mistake, and it is the one worth checking first. Both words belong to the same house, which is why they get confused.

Direction is what makes a pair work. Each phrase belongs to one side of the moment, and there is no version of it for the other side.

A pair is also why you rarely have to start a greeting from nothing. Someone says their part, and your part is already decided by which side you are standing on.

Inside a household the daytime word is out of place. You do not say こんにちは (konnichiwa) to your own family, because it sounds distant to the people you live with.

So home has a set of its own. The pairs cover the coming and the going, and the daytime word stays for people outside the household.

The end of the day has a word of its own as well. おやすみなさい (oyasuminasai) closes it, at home or on the way out.

The second question has a short answer, and it turns on one word. おはよう (ohayou) takes ございます (gozaimasu), and that longer form is safe with anyone.

おはよう (ohayou) and おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu) are one greeting at two lengths. Close friends and family get the short one, and everyone else gets the long one.

Said to a friend you see every day, the short one is the natural choice:

おはよう。 (ohayou.)

Good morning. (the casual one)

おはよう (ohayou) is correct Japanese too, the casual one of the pair.

What decides between them is the person, not the hour. The hour already gave you the word, and the person sets its length.

ございます (gozaimasu) is the part doing that work. Added to the short form, it makes the greeting right for anyone outside your close friends.

When you are unsure which one fits, take the long one. It is the form that suits anyone outside that circle, and that covers most of a day.

The same ending is why おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu) works on your first morning in a new office. You are not close to those people yet, and the long form says so without any effort from you.

Politeness in Japanese goes further than one ending, into forms that change the verb itself. The field note on politeness levels works through those.

For greetings, though, the long form is as far as you need. Where a greeting has two lengths, you are choosing between them rather than building anything.

So the two questions finish in order. The moment gives you the word, and the person in front of you decides whether it takes ございます (gozaimasu).

The moment picks the greeting, and only おはよう (ohayou) changes length for the person you face.

ただいま (tadaima) belongs to the one coming home, and おかえりなさい (okaerinasai) to the one already inside.

They divide by the hour first. おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu) early in the day, こんにちは (konnichiwa) from late morning until dark, and こんばんは (konbanwa) after dark.

The rest belong to moments rather than to hours. Leaving the house, being seen off, coming back, and turning in each have words of their own.

Those are the greetings the moment asks for. Everything after them is a matter of how polite to make the one you have chosen.

No. こんにちは (konnichiwa) is good from late morning until dark, which is wider than the afternoon and narrower than the whole day.

Before that, the greeting is おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu). After dark it is こんばんは (konbanwa).

One place it does not fit is your own home. You do not say it to the family you live with, because it sounds distant.

Both are correct, and they are not for the same person. おはよう (ohayou) is the casual one, and おはようございます (ohayougozaimasu) fits anyone outside your close friends.

At work the long one is the usual choice, because the people there are outside that circle.

When you are unsure, take the long one. It is the form that is right in more places.

Inside Ukiyoe Japanese, the greetings in this note are one page on the phrases shelf, called Greetings from Morning to Night. It holds each phrase with its reading, and the pairs run one after another, so the two directions stay apart.