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My book says Goodmorning/Good afternoon. Yet all the articles online say Good afternoon. Than I have other people who say its Hello. How can this word mean both Good afternoon, hello and Good morning?
It sounds like a generic informal greeting. Words in other languages don't always correspond exactly to words in English, so one word can easily mean good afternoon, good morning and hello.
Well if it does not translate and a person knowing English is trying to learn Japanese how so you understand what it means?
Words are complicated things. It's not as simple as bonjour = ola = konnichiwa = hello. Words are symbols for meanings, and those meanings roughly correspond to the meaning of words in other languages. Sometimes that meaning can be generic, sometimes it can be specific.
"Good morning", "good afternoon" and "hello" are all symbols for roughly the same meaning, so I wouldn't worry about which konnichiwa most directly corresponds to. Learning languages is not an exact science.
Yes but they have other words for Good morning, and Good evening and a separate word for Good night. That only mean that.
Pick which you want to use and use them. Does your book give explanations on when it's appropriate to use the greetings? If not, then just do it how you want unless a native Japanese speaker (or someone well versed in it) corrects you.
Konnochiwa is generic so that means you can use it at any of the listed times. If you'd rather use one of the other words, then use those at their appropriate times as well. If your book doesn't tell you then you might need to start off with an easier book.
Try Japanese from Zero. 10/10 would recommend.
It's a greeting. As simple as that. There could be different uses with it, but the main is Hello.
Yes ,but think about other language, ,saying Aloha, it's a hello and goodbye . Sounds funny but in the movie Miss Congeniality. she made a comment to Miss Hawaii,"In Hawaii If it means both, how do you know when to end the conversation,if you say aloha at the end, how do they know your not starting the conversation again. I never thought about it .but in many countries especially Asian ,their word can mean something different just by how long or hi or low you end the letter .My friend is from Japan .These are difficult language . Here In yoga how You say Namasta,when you leave and enter it is kind of a bleeding to shoe peace to each other .many word depend on the way and when your saying them .
Good morning- ohayou gozaimasu
Good afternoon/hello- konnichiwa
Good evening- konbanwa
Goodnight- oyasuminasai
Forgive me if I my romanji is incorrect. Its been a couple years since I've take nihongo.
I'm currently taking my 4th year of Japanese and I approve this.
Pretty simple stuff once you get it down.
Well that's what all the articles said. Yet someone who claims to live in japan now says its hello, the anime said it means good-morning, the articles online say its good afternoon, and my book says Good-morning/Good afternoon. So this is really confusing. Since all the sources say something different.
A lot of languages have a word that cover a multitude of greetings, such as aloha in Hawaiian.