11 useful Japanese expressions for your part-time job in Japan. You may lose your face if you don’t know these.

For those who come to Japan to study, a financial situation is inseparable from living in Japan. There is no end to worry about money, even living on a monthly allowance from parents and even receiving scholarships.

Using the vacant time to do a part-time job is a solution for foreign students to stabilize their financial situation in Japan. However, students, coming to Japan for the first time, have many concerns about if they can get used to the Japanese working customs.

Hence, as an introduction before you start doing a part-time job, I introduce the Japanese style greetings for business, which you are expected to frequently use in a working scene in Japan. Let’s get started!

7 basic expressions for service

“Irasshaimase” (いらっしゃいませ)

This is a greeting to welcome costomers to visit a restaurant or a shop. You don’t draw out the end of the word, it sounds like you’re really razy about greeting. When you say “Irasshaimase”, you should give a warm smile at a customer.

“Irasshaimase” was originally a honorific language, which consists of “come”, “go”, “be”, and “enter”. The polite language of an imperative form, “mase”, of a verbal auxiliary, “masu” is put after the conjunctive form of “Irasu”

“Kashikomarimashita” (かしこまりました)

“Kashikomarimashita” (かしこまりました) is an expression to show an intention of understanding or acceptance towards customer’s requests. “Wakarimashita”(わかりました) and “Ryokaishimashita” (了解しました) are the same expressions, included in one of the polite languages though, which are an easier way than “Kashikomarimashita”.

“Kashikomarimashita” is the most polite expression of how you can show your understanding to a customer, and has the power to draw a line clearly between a customer and a service. If you use this expression, customers must acknowledge your superiority about your attitude as a servicer.

“Shou-Shou-omachikudasai” (少々お待ちください)

In the case that you are questioned about a menu by a customer while you take an order in a restaurant or something but you don’t know what you are questioned about, when you leave a customer temporarily to ask your senior what you are questioned about by a customer, you need to obtain costumer’s agreement formally to making a customer wait until you come back with the right answer. This expression should be used in such a situation.

“Shou-shou” (少々) means “a little”. “Omachikudasai” (お待ちください) means “please wait”.

If you want to let this expression more polite, you change this expression to an interrogative sentence. “Shou-Shou-Omachiidadakemasudeshouka?” (少々お待ちいただけますでしょうか？), which literally means “could you please wait for a little?” Leaving choices to a customer is a way to show a customer where an initiative belongs to in any situation.

“Omatase-itashimashita” (お待たせいたしました)

It means, “Thank you for waiting”

Imagine, in a restaurant, a kitchen is really busy in a flurry of too many orders and serving a meal to a customer has a long delay but a customer is annoyed without knowing the situation. How can you deal with it? The following steps are a quite orthodox manner to deal with such a situation.

If embedding the right expressions in each step,

For those who don’t understand what these expressions mean, I attach the English version of a skit right below

It is kind of free translation because direct translation can’t tell you fully a subtle nuance of these Japanese expressions.

words list

Japanese	English
Taihen	really, seriously
Komiatte-orimashite	Beasese a restaurant is crowded
Tdaima	now
Jumbanni	in turn
otsukuri-shiteimasu	We are preparing for a meal

“Omataseitashimasita” has uniquely a subtle nuance of apology for letting a customer wait. So when you speak this expression to a customer, you should be in a mood to feel sorry to make a customer wait, rather than you give a positive atmosphere of gratitude for customer’s waiting.

However, your tone of voice and attitude are going to be way more straightforward without feeling anything like a robot if you get used to the job, anyway. Whatever, if you have a room in your mind, you just give it a try.

“Osoreirimasu” (恐れ入ります)

It means, “thank you for understanding” and “I am sorry but…” There are roughly two meaning in it depending on the situation.

Firstly, if you let a customer accept an inconvenience demand with the shop’s rules or something, then you find a moment that a customer understand it and you show gratitude for customer’s understanding.

For example, when you take an order for a customer in a restaurant, a customer requests you to upgrade a meal, listed on a menu. But, on the restaurant’s rules, no upgrading option for all the menu is offered. And, you need to explain this inconvenience, the request cannot be responded, to a customer. When a customer shows an understanding of this inconvenience, you would rather use this to show your gratitude for a customer’s understanding.

Secondly, this is used when requesting something to a customer. This is a kind of apology for what you are going to say after this expression. When thinking about an apology nuance expression, what you are going to say is unacceptable for a customer. So, putting apology words as a buffer right before you start talking your real intention, you give an inevitable atmosphere that a customer has to do what you say, even though it is unacceptable for a customer.

For example, when you request a customer to share a table with someone because of a peak hour in a restaurant, you can use this before offering a table sharing

“Arigatougozaimasu” (ありがとうございます)

This is a famous expression, which nobody doesn’t know. It means, “Thank you or Thak you for coming”

This is a very basic greeting that you must say smoothly without terrible awkward pose. A person newly employed is unexceptionally forced to do voice training for this expression.

If you grow into Japanese society and get fully influenced by the Japanese way of thinking, you may say “Sumimasen” as the meaning of “Thank you”. However, “Sumimasen” originally means, “sorry” in a casual way. If you show your gratitude to a customer warm-heartedly, this is the right expression.

In a Japanese restaurant, servers are unexceptionally required to make a bow when saying “Arigatogozaimasu”. They are told to express their gratitude by full use of their bodies. In terms of bow’s angle, an angle of 45 degrees are preferred.

“Moushiwakegozaimasen” (申し訳ございません)

It means “I am really sorry”.

When you receive unreasonable complaints, which you know nothing about, from a customer, you settle everything peacefully with a word of “Moushiwakegozaimasen”. This expression can be used flexibly in various situations. But, the situation I heard this expression the most in a restaurant is when a waiter apologizes to a customer for unreasonable complains without excuses.

Unless understanding the sense of Japanese people, it is difficult to resist your rebellious emotion against the behavior of apology to a customer for a complaint that you have nothing to do with. However, this is culture. You should accept it and do what you need to do even though your emotion says “I don’t apologize to him!!!!!!”

Other useful expressions

Yoroshiideshouka (よろしいですか)

This is an expression to make sure if correctly responding to customer’s request. For example, you work at a juwery shop. When a customer indicates a product by a indicate finger through a transparent showcase, you take out the one which is thought to be what a customer indicates from a showcase and say “Kochirade-yoroshiideshouka?”, to make sure what you take out is the same thing as what customer indicates. It leterally means, “Is this what you choosed?”.

There is a case that you can simply use just “Yoroshiideshouka”. For, example, when a customer seem to finish ordering foods in a restaurnat, you could say, “Yoroshiideshouka?”, to a customer. In this case, “anything else?” is probably the right translation from its nuance.

“Degozaimasu” (でございます)

This is a verbal auxiliary of polite language. Speaking of a verbal auxiliary of polite language, what you first come up with is probably, “desu” or “masu”. “Gozaimasu” is way more polite than these verbal auxiliaries. This expression has various ways of using, but basically, this is used with a combination of noun words.

This is frequently used when introducing your name, showing a specific thing to a person, or a place where you guide a person to. It is difficult to understand this kind of wired explanation. Let’s see an example.

For example, you work for a restaurant as a waiter. When you take a customer to a reserved table, you can use this way, “Kochira-degoazaimasu”, which literally means “Here is your seat (table).”

For another example, when you let someone, whom you meet for the first time, know your name, you can say “(your name) degozaimasu”.

“Oazukarishimasu” (お預かります)

This is a verb that expresses “keep something for you” or “look after something for you”

For example, you stand at the checkout counter to process customer’s payment. When a customer pays the bill, a customer pays you a big bill, which you need to give changes back. You keep customer’s bill by your hand once, and you say, “Oazukarishimasu” with the amount of money by your hand. If you keep a bill of 10,000 yen, you can say “Ichiman-yen, oazukarishimasu”.

For another example, you work as a bell boy at a hotel. When a customer wants to keep a suitcase and go sightseeing until check-in time, and a customer requests you to keep a suitcase, then you can say, “o-nimotsu-wo, oazukarishimasu”, which means, I look after your suitcase.

“Choudoitadakimasu” (ちょうどいただきます)

This is an expression to be used when a customer pays a bill perfectly without needing to give changes back. It means, “perfect”.
You can use this way, “1000 yen, Choudoitadakimasu, Arigatougozaimasu”, which means, “1000 yen! perfect! Thanks, man!”

Conclusion

Japanese people are really sensitive about what they are thought by other people externally. Whatever kind of part-time job you do in Japan, you have to serve a customer in a polite manner to some extent.

Prior to using these expressions, please do your job with an understanding that the position of a customer and a waiter are not equal but decisively different in the sense that a customer is a king.

If you understand it, these expressions are expected to naturally come out of your mouth. If there is still questions and doubts left in your deep mind about using these expressions, it is difficult to be employed continuously in Japan.

The first thing you do is just considering if the situations in the examples, where these expressions are used, can be acceptable for you or not.