Lesson 02: Introducing yourself

You meet a new classmate. Your first goal is not a perfect conversation, but a greeting and your name. はじめまして (hajimemashite) is used when meeting someone for the first time. It is a set phrase: you do not need to analyse its parts yet.

Then you can say わたしはブラムです (watashi wa Buramu desu), meaning ‘I am Bram’. ブラム (Buramu) is the Japanese rendering of Bram here; another name can go in the same place. Non-Japanese names are often written in katakana, but you do not need to transliterate your own name yet.

Use the play button and repeat the two sentences. A short pause between them is fine. You can use the practice name Bram in this lesson, whatever your real name is. The next chapter supplies all the words you need.

はじめまして。

わたしは ブラムです。

A noun names, for example, a person or a role: ‘student’, ‘teacher’, or a name. The words below let you say who someone is. Start with the greeting, student, teacher, yes, and no. You may look up the other expressions while practising.

In オランダじん (Orandajin), じん (jin) indicates a person of that nationality. It is not the name of a language. The list provides complete words; you do not need to form new words with じん yet. Listen for three short beats in いいえ (iie): i-i-e, not a single short ‘ee’.

A conversation often closes with よろしくおねがいします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu). There is no neat literal translation; here it conveys ‘nice to meet you’ or ‘I look forward to getting to know you’. こちらこそ (kochira koso) returns that friendly wish. そうですか (sou desu ka) is an acknowledgement here, not a new question requiring an answer.

A particle is a small Japanese word that indicates the role of the preceding phrase. は follows the topic: what you are talking about. In わたしはがくせいです (watashi wa gakusei desu), the topic is ‘I’ and the new information is ‘student’. Here the topic coincides with the grammatical subject ‘I’, but this does not happen in every Japanese sentence. We therefore call は the topic particle, not simply the subject particle.

You know は from the hiragana chart as HA, but this particle is pronounced WA. That is a pronunciation rule, not a spelling mistake. Here です (desu), together with the noun, makes a polite statement. ‘Student + desu’ becomes ‘am/is a student’ in English, depending on the topic.

Translate the whole message rather than replacing each block with an English word. は does not simply mean ‘am’, and です is not a politeness sticker to put after every Japanese verb. Now change only ブラム (Buramu) to がくせい (gakusei): the structure stays the same but the information changes. When everyone already knows who you mean, you can omit the topic: がくせいです (gakusei desu) is then a complete response.

わたしは がくせいです。

Adding か (ka) at the end turns this polite statement into a question. You do not reverse the word order as in ‘are you?’. ブラムさんはがくせいですか (Buramu-san wa gakusei desu ka) asks whether Bram is a student. A question mark is optional: か already marks the question.

さん (san) is a respectful suffix after someone else's name. Introduce yourself as ブラムです, not ブラムさんです. You can address someone by name rather than repeatedly translating ‘you’. If the topic is clear, がくせいですか (gakusei desu ka) is enough.

A positive practice answer is はい、がくせいです (hai, gakusei desu): ‘Yes, I am a student’. It shows that you understood the content. はい alone can also be appropriate in a real conversation; it is not automatically impolite. Here we practise a fuller response to use the sentence structure.

ブラムさんは がくせいですか。

はい、がくせいです。

Not every introduction confirms the question. Now play someone who is a teacher, not a student. Start with いいえ (iie), ‘no’. After がくせい (gakusei), replace です with じゃありません (ja arimasen).

がくせいじゃありません (gakusei ja arimasen) means ‘am/is not a student’. It remains a statement about who someone is, but becomes negative. More formal language uses ではありません (dewa arimasen); は is again pronounced WA here. Both negative forms are accepted in our exercises.

Do not add another です afterwards. Do not put only ありません after the noun either: this negative noun sentence needs じゃ or では. You can then say せんせいです (sensei desu) to explain what is true. A good answer addresses the question's meaning, not just its polite ending.

いいえ、がくせいじゃありません。

がくせいではありません。

せんせいです。

A short introduction has a useful route: greet, give your name, answer a question, and close. You do not need to repeat your entire introduction on every turn. First identify who is speaking and who the question is about. A name followed by さん often refers to the conversation partner.

In the reading story, Bram meets Aki. All the important expressions are in chapter 2, including そうですか, どうぞよろしく, and こちらこそ. Open reading support when needed; understanding comes before memorising everything. The play buttons let you hear each speaker's voice.

Read the whole dialogue before answering the comprehension questions. Then use the return button at the top to come back to this lesson. Below the chapters, create a new introduction and complete the final check. Using support is practice, not failure, but it is not yet evidence of independent use.

This preview is not required to finish lesson 02. Your partner says they are a student, and you are one too. You can say わたしもがくせいです (watashi mo gakusei desu). Here も (mo) adds ‘also’ and replaces は in this pattern.

Do not write わたしはも. ‘Also’ must fit something already said. After ‘I am not a student’, a positive sentence with も does not automatically mean ‘neither am I’. For now, use it when the same positive information applies to two people; other uses come later.

わたしも がくせいです。