Self Introductions in Japanese

In Japan people are very into "Self Introductions". If you ever meet people you'll often be asked to introduce yourself.

The keyword you are going to need here is

You may have seen it written down as "Desu", but it's pronounced more like "dess". You need to think of it as a spoken full stop. So to introduce yourself you just say your name plus "desu".

e.g. Richard Desu.

Although just keep in mind that unless your name is said in a perfect Japanese accent most people won't understand, but don't worry, they'll ask you again later. ( My name comes out to be Richardo!)

The next useful word you'll need is:

This is pronounced "no", and simply means "belonging to". It's a bit like the " 's " in English e.g. "Richard's pen" in Japanese is "Richardo no pen".

The reason it's useful here is that you can use it to describe which country or company you are from. e.g. learn some of the country names using the online game and you'll be able to say things like.

"Amerika no Tom desu" = "Hi, I'm Tom from Amerika".

It's exactly the same if you work for a company, for example you could say

"IBM no Jessica desu" = "Hi, I'm Jessica from IBM".

Very simple, and in most cases all you'll need to do is to add in a nice deep bow and you'll get a round of applause. Seriously.

If you want to be a bit of a show off ( and it probably isn't necessary at first!), you could try this phrase:

The second part of this is "o ne ga i shi ma su", which is a posh way of saying "please". The whole thing is said as "Yo ro shi ku o ne ga i shi ma su". If you can remember it, try it before you bow as a way of wishing for the best for everyone. If you can't remember it, just stick with .... desu and you'll be fine!