I just stated learning japanese recently and I was trying to use the topic particle. I wanted to say my name so after saying なまえ I added the particle は.
こにちわ、わたしなまえはカーソン
Is this right or am I missing something?
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こんにちは、わたしのなまえはカーソンです
I corrected the spelling of こんにちは, added a の between わたし and なまえ, and added です
The は was fine where it was.
Note that if you are meeting someone for the first time, you would also say はじめまして.
This would be grammatically correct and polite. It’s not the most natural way to introduce yourself, but you will work toward that the more Japanese you learn.
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Leebo, if you don’t mind me asking, what is the more natural way to introduce yourself? Is it はじめまして、わたしは（なまえ）です? How would you introduce yourself to someone you’re working with for the first time versus someone you’re casually meeting for the first time?
You won’t need わたし or any pronoun in a natural introduction. If you are introducing yourself in a work environment, you will usually start with the company or department you work in before your name. You would also want to throw a よろしくおねがいします or よろしくおねがいいたします in there.
In a casual intro, you wouldn’t need your company or anything.
Yes, the natural intro is actually simpler in some ways, since you don’t need pronouns, but it’s important to learn what you’re omitting before you start omitting it.
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I see now! Thanks! And I agree it’s important to learn the long way first, so to speak.
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if u took out わたし, would you put の between こんにちは and なまえ?
Oh, you wouldn’t need の or なまえ. Or は in that case.
Like, I’m a teacher at a middle school, so if I needed to introduce myself to another person outside my school in a work environment I might say
はじめまして、〇〇中学校のリーボです。よろしくおねがいします。(〇〇 is a placeholder for my actual school name and Leebo obviously isn’t my real name).
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I appreciate it alot, I still don’t quite understand but is probably because I started 2 weeks ago and I started learning Grammer yesterday and haven’t gotten that far yet. Thanks!
Natural Japanese just omits things that are obvious to the speaker and listener more aggressively than English. If you have never seen someone before and start saying something that sounds like an introduction, anyone can guess that it’s your name, so you don’t need to actually say that it’s your name.
If you do fully spell things out, it won’t really surprise a Japanese person, because they are used to hearing “textbook Japanese” from foreigners.
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So like I could just say こんにちは, [ENTER NAME HERE] and that would be good?
Well, はじめまして is more critical than こんにちは, but yeah, basically. You’d also want よろしく at the very least.
In case you aren’t aware, こんにちは is time-limited, even though it’s often translated as just “hello.” It’s something you only say to someone the first time you see them if that time is between like… 10:30AM and when the sun starts to go down.
That’s not like… super important to know now, but I thought you might not be aware.
おはようございます is for the morning before こんにちは, and こんばんは is for the evening.
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So in summary, チャオっす！俺タマっす。よろしくなああ！
Joke version above. Real version: ひじめまして。タマです。よろしくおねがいします！
Also, as Leebo mentioned, you can always add more stuff as you get more comfortable, but personally I think having less to say is better when you are just getting used to introductions, to avoid panicking and completely forgetting everything on the spot.
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Leebo’s covered the specifics of this sentence, but in general, the の was there only to connect the noun わたし to the noun なまえ, because you always need a の to directly connect two nouns together. If you remove one of the nouns, the need for the の goes away.
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