Comments:

1. 

    

   Brad:

   Great article! Could you write one about business emails within a company, such as to a coworker or boss?

2. 

    

   bouhafs:

   I’m from Algeria and I am really interested in japanese,but I find kanji is hard put to learn it ,could you do me a favour helping me to overcome this problem,God bless you, thanks in advance.

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @bouhafs Hi there!
     I know Kanji’s can be hard to learn. But I strongly believe that if you start with basic ones first, you will soon build your Kanji knowledge. In Japan, school children start learning Kanji’s starting at 1st grade. They learn the basic 80 of them during the 1st grade. Perhaps you could start with those and expand from there. Once you master the first 80, then move onto the next 160 Kanji’s that 2nd graders learn. I have to find the ones with English explanation, but to start with, check out the web

     site:http://homepage1.nifty.com/hottayukio/kanji.htm

     This site has 80 basic Kanji’s and it also shows you the stroke order.
     Good luck!

3. 

    

   carlene:

   I’m wondering how common it is to include いつもお世話になります　at the beginning and 宜しくお願い致します　at the end….

   Thanks!

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @carlene Hi carlene,

     Good question! いつもお世話になります. or いつもお世話になっております。is very common to say at the beginning of the email.You would normally say this to someone like, your children’s teachers, or someone who is at higher social status… you would not say this to your close friends. 宜しくお願い致します is often used at the end of the email if you are asking something in your email. This expression is often used among friends as well if you are asking your friend to do something for you.Hope this helps.

4. 

    

   bruce:

   This is really right? : Urgent – Shikyu (至急、しきゅう)

   strange!

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @bruce Yes, urgent means Shikyu (至急、しきゅう) in Japanese. 🙂

5. 

    

   Junaidy:

   Hi Keiko san, great article and thank you for sharing,

   Just want to check with you, if we want to address spell Japanese name and we don’t know the appropriate Kanji for the receiver name, should I tyoe in katakata or hiragana?

   Thank you.

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @Junaidy Hi Junaidy,

     Thanks for your comment! Great question! Normally for business emails, I think Katakana might look more appropriate. I have seen many Katakana’s used to address someone’s names (without Kanji) rather than Hiragana’s. Generally speaking, Hiragana’s are expressed as “soft-looking” characters in Japanese. If it was an email to your close friend, you would want to use Hiragana rather than Katakana as Katakana has a bit more “formal” look to it.
     Hope this makes sense!

6. 

    

   Hana:

   Thank you for a very handy article!

   One question – you used ‘sama’ in your example. When addressing a complete stranger in an email, would it matter if you used ‘san’ or ‘sama’? I am worried it will look a bit weird if I used ‘sama’. I was told ‘sama’ was reserved for, like, the queen or something! I might have been told the wrong info!!

   Thanks!

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @Hana Hi Hana,

     Great question! When addressing to a stranger, you would actually want to use “sama” rather than “San”. Sama will always sound much more polite than san. Sama is not just for king and queen, but anytime you want to be polite especially if you don’t know the person well. Sama will be perfect! Hope this helps!

7. 

    

   Bob:

   Hi Keiko-san,

   I work in a US based company and need to write to my Japanese counterparts in Japan. I have good enough Japanese language skills to converse in meetings, but reading/writing skills are not as good.

   I was curious about a previous question that came up. I feel like your example is very formal and would be very respectful to customers or other important people you are contacting. But in my case, I will be conversing with my counterparts in Japan.

   Would the vocabulary used to write an email to my counterpart still be the same? Or would that sounds odd because it would be overly formal? Thank you for your help!

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @Bob Hi Bob,

     Very good question. The example I posted on the blog site was very formal example. If your counterparts in Japan are someone you know very well, you could sound a bit more friendly. However, I would still use polite form, especially since you will be writing an email. Exactly what are you going to be writing to them about? Perhaps I can cover the topic as an example of writing to business counterparts in my future posts. Let me know.

     Thanks,
     Keiko

8. 

    

   Sridharan:

   Dear Keiko san

   Kindly inform the words in Japan for the following

   Best Regards

   Dear Sir

   Thanks and Regards

9. 

    

   Burcu:

   Great blog! It helped me a lot to write an e-mail today. I have a quick question for situations in which we are addressing a certain office/division in a university or company and we don’t have the knowledge of any particular person’s name. What sort of addressing word should we use in such cases? Thanks in advance!

   • 

      

     keiko:

     @Burcu Hi Burcu,

     Thank you for your feedback. If you don’t know individuals names to whom you are addressing, I would use something like,
     “~ 各位（かくい）”　 Here ~ kakui is something like “To All” in English. So, for example if you are addressing your email to a group of people who are related to the “Project A”, you would say, “Project A 関係者　各位” or “Project A かんけいしゃ　かくい” This is “Project A Kankeisha Kakui” Kankeisha Kakui is “all related parties”.

     Hope this helps!

10. 

     

    shobha:

    Hi keikosan very useful info. Can you also tell about the seasonal exlressions used to start a letter..onegaishimasu

    • 

       

      keiko:

      @shobha Hi there,
      Yes, that will be a great topic for my next blog post. I will get working on it! Thank you!

11. 

     

    li:

    Hey! keiko san! your blog is great. Thanks a lot. It helps me so much!

12. 

     

    Nishith S:

    Hello Keiko San,
    Its so nice of you for posting the contents that are so useful for japanese learners…
    Please keep up the good work.お願いします。。。
    私も日本語を勉強していますが、メールでへのやり取りはめっちゃ難しいと思う。いろいろ探してこのサイトを見つかってとてもよかったです。。。
    メールで尊敬語や丁寧語を使われているから、
    一致する言葉や文書が見つけないとできないよね。。。
    ケイコさん、お手伝ってくださって有難うございました。。。
    これからもお願いします。。。

    • 

       

      keiko:

      @Nishith S Hi Nishith S san,

      Thank you for your comments! I am really glad my blog post was helpful to you. Your Japanese sounds great, and writing is well written with Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. So nice to hear from a reader like you about my posts. Thank you again! Keiko