2011年8月29日月曜日

Have a good weekend !

Zansho omimai moushi agemasu.

This is a greeting for summer. It means “Are you doing OK in the hot weather?” and is used when we write a letter or postcard to friends or acquaintances. Every year I write postcards for zansho mimai only to my aunts living far away and friends whom I rarely see, but it is nice to get in touch with them for a season’s greeting.
 
The Japanese greetings that even a newcomer knows are “konnichiwa”, “arigato”, etc. Also, the greetings that you learn when you eat with Japanese people are “itadakimas” and “gochisosama”. The ones that you learn by hearing Japanese colleagues saying them everyday are “otsukaresama” and “osaki ni shitsurei shimas”.
*itadakimas: Thank you for the food. (before eating)
gochisosama: Thank you for the food. (after eating)
otsukaresama: Thank you for your hard work. (after finishing your work)
osaki ni shitsurei shimas: Excuse me for leaving the office before you.
Moreover, everyone wonders how one might say “Have a good weekend” in Japanese.
Have a good weekend. = yoi shumatsu o. / tanoshii shumatsu o.
The full sentence is “yoi / tanoshii shumatsu o sugoshite kudasai.” We omit “sugoshite kudasai” (Please spend). But, make sure to keep “o” because it is important.

We often use this greeting “yoi shumatsu o. / tanoshii shumatsu o.”, but I think they are translated from English. We probably didn’t have these kinds of greetings in Japan before. This is because such greetings as "Have a good day”, “Have a good night” or “Have a good holiday" are rarely used in Japanese.
Have a good day. = yoi ichinichi o.
This is not strange, but I think it is not used that much.

There is no good Japanese translation for "Have a good night". We never say “yoi yoru o”. When you say goodbye to someone after 8pm or 9pm and if you will just go home and sleep, you can say “oyasuminasai” (Have a good sleep/ Sleep well). However, it is weird to say “oyasuminasai” around 6pm or 7pm and you will still have dinner or go out later on.

Furthermore, for "Have a good holiday." or "Have a nice trip." I think it would be more natural to say “yasumi o tanoshinde kudasai” (Enjoy your holiday) or “ryoko o tanoshinde kudasai” (Enjoy your trip), instead of “yoi yasumi o” or “yoi ryoko o”.

Also, there is a convenient expression in Japanese called “gokigenyo”.
It means something like “Are you feeling well?” or “I hope you are well.” and is a greeting used when you meet someone and say goodbye both in the daytime and nighttime. But, we think this greeting is feminine and too elegant, so it is not popular anymore.

Well, lately the temperature has dropped a little, but the summer heat still lingers. Enjoy the rest of summer.

By the way, people say “Stay cool” in English when it is hot, but there is no expression like this in Japanese. If I try to translate it, it becomes “suzushiku ite ne”, but this would not be used.

*Watch the video, too!

13 件のコメント:

  1. My friend and I were having a discussion about this today. Your post cleared things up. ^^

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  2. ダシルバジセリさん、I am glad that my post helped you!
    I recently realized that we don't have an expression like "I hope you had a nice weekend." in Japanese. We just say, "shumatsu wa tanoshikatta?"(Was your weekend good?) or "shumatsu wa do datta?"(How was your weekend?).

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  3. I was looking for expressing 'Have a nice weekend' and stumbled on your blog. Thank you for providing the guidance \^_^/ 凄く助かりました、ありがとうございます。
    - Will

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    1. Will san, どういたしまして。さいきん私は"Have a nice day" と書くときに 「いい一日を おすごしください」と書いています。これなら、おかしくないと おもいます。

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  4. So that explais why I couldn't think of a way to say, I hope you had a nice time! The problem of being multilingual is that it becomes difficult to explain one's feelings uni-lingually.
    日本語を勉強し始めたばかりの時は、似ている言語がないから結構難しかったです。しかし、こんな素敵な言語を習うのに、どれほど頑張っても疲れません。今はほとんど大丈夫ですが、まだこういう「日本語では存在しない」所では困るんです。バイリンガルの友達がいれば助けてくれますが、いない場合は本当に大変ですネ。辞書などは全然便利じゃないです。すごくおかしくなりますね。
    そしておかもと先生(先生・・・ですよね)のBolgを見つけて本当によかったです!
    私も講師ですから、分かりやすい説明は作りにくいという事、分かってます。
    色々の素晴らしい説明をありがとうございます!
    - Ana

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    1. アナさん、コメントありがとうございます。
      存在しない表現や直訳できない表現は日々使われている日本語から学ぶことですね。
      アナさんの日本語の文とても上手ですが、一つ直す部分があります。「どれほど頑張っても疲れません」は「どれほど頑張っても飽きません(あきません)」の方がいいと思います。
      これからも勉強続けてください!

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  5. Pretty old post, sorry for digging it out, but it helped me a lot not to make a silly mistake at the end of conversation ^^; ありがとうございます!

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  6. First of all thank you for the post.

    I have seen lot's of books (English- Japanese) and translation. However, when I came in Japan, the way the people do greetings between each other was significantly different. (From my opinion it was just translated from English to Japanese)

    In one of the incident,
    By using online translator, I got to now the greetings for "Good Morning" was mentioned in the translator as "Ohayo". And I have used same word with my Japanese colleague who was very experienced than me. Later on I found that it is very causal word to be used in front of the Japanese person when someone is more experienced than you. I was regretting for using that casual greetings in front of him. However, whole world knows that Japanese are very nice to every one.

    Till the date, I haven't found a good book which is more organized and translating words perfectly.

    Thank You once again.

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    1. Patel san, Thank you for reading my blog.
      There are "ohayo" and "ohayo gozaimas", arigato", "arigato gozaimas" and "arigato gozaimashita".They basically mean the same, but indicate a slight difference of level of politeness or different tense.
      Information in books is limited.
      I think that you should try to listen carefully to Japanese people around you when you are in Japan and pick up their actual usages of those phrases.

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  7. Good day to you. May i know do take care is "okii tsukete " ?
    Thanks.

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    1. Take care (in general) = ki o tsukete.
      Take care (specifically to a sick/injured person) = odaiji ni.

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