Basic greetings: Common greetings

🇯🇵 [こんにちは] is a standard daytime greeting, but not usually the first thing you say very early in the morning or late at night. For those, [おはよう] and [こんばんは] sound more natural.

💬 In [お元気ですか？], the [お] makes the phrase more polite, and [ですか] turns it into a polite question. You can reuse that pattern with other nouns too, like [お名前ですか？] in different contexts.

🇯🇵 [さようなら] is real, but in daily life it can sound a bit final, like a longer-term goodbye. For everyday parting, people often use things like [またね] or [じゃあね] instead.

💬 [お名前] is [名前] with polite [お] added, a common way to make everyday words sound more respectful. [何ですか] means "what is it?", so this whole pattern is literally "As for your name, what is it?"

💬 [は] here is the topic marker, so it is said (wa), not (ha). The pattern [私の名前は ___ です] is an easy template: swap in your own name before [です].

🇯🇵 [はじめまして] is for the first time you meet someone, not for seeing them again later. A very common next line is [よろしくお願いします].

🇯🇵 [おはよう] is casual and fine with friends, family, and coworkers you know well. In more polite situations, people often say [おはようございます].

💬 [は] in [こんばんは] is also the topic marker, so it is pronounced (wa), not (ha). The same thing happens in [こんにちは].