Matt Fargo (8 page)

yoroshiku onegai shimasu

Okay, so literally this phrase doesn’t mean “let’s be friends,” but that’s the best English equivalent I can offer. (A literal translation would go something like “I hope you will take care of things in a manner that is convenient for both of us.”) When I learned Japanese as a kid, my teacher gave it the almost as unwieldy rendering. “Please be kind to our friendship.” Basically, it’s a word that appeals to someone’s generosity. You use it after introducing yourself to someone for the first time, or when you ask a favor of somebody who’s already your friend. When you say yoroshiku to a friend, it just means something like “do me right, baby,” as in the following:

In other words, yoroshiku is an all-purpose phrase that you can use whenever you need to implore somebody’s altruism. There are also numerous slang versions of the word:

hajimemashite

Not to sound like a broken record, but in Japan you don’t use slang with someone you don’t know. Which means that when you are asking somebody how old they are, where they grew up, or whether they prefer Diet or regular Dr. Pepper, you probably need to use polite speech. Here are some basic non-slang icebreakers to use with new acquaintances.