My understanding is that はじめまして (cf. 初め) is said upon meeting someone for the first time. I’ve seen people begin conversions with new people bypassing こんにちは and saying instead “はじめまして” (which is why you will notice many Japanese speakers, upon speaking in English, will greet you for the very first time ever with “Nice to meet you” instead of “Hi, nice to meet you”). Apparently it comes from the more formal phrase “お初にお目にかかります” (something like “meeting [someone of a higher status] for the first time”)
どうぞよろしく means something like “please be good to me” or “best regards.” Most textbooks I’ve seen place どうぞよろしく and よろしくおねがいします at the end of the self-introduction. So, the self-introduction and meeting sound something like:
“Nice to meet you [for the first time]. My name is ____. I am ___ years old. I am from ____. Please be good to me/I give you my best regards.”
はじめまして – literally “for the first time,” as in “we are meeting for the first time.”
どうぞよろしくおねがいします – a catch all term wishing the listener will act in accordance to the speaker’s wishes. In a greeting, it might work like “I hope we get along well,” “I look forward to working with you” and so on.
But they *don’t* both mean “nice to meet you”…..
You usually say both when you’re introducing yourself. The difference is which order you say them in. Japanese has a kind of a procedure for introducing yourself that we don’t really have in English. So, it’s not that helpful to think of those phrases in terms of their English translations. For this, it’s more helpful to think of them in terms of when you say them.
This is the procedure, in order.
1. はじめまして 2. Say your name and maybe a detail or two about yourself. 3. どうぞよろしくor よろしくおねがいします
Japanese has a few phrases like this, where it’s easier to think of when you say them rather than what they mean. いただきます is a good example. Japanese people will say this before they start eating a meal. If you’re watching a movie or show in Japanese with subtitles, they will usually put something like “let’s eat”, but there’s not really a good translation for English because we don’t have a specific word or phrase we say before we start eating. It’s easier to think of it as “the thing you say before you start eating”.
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I think you have it right? On first meeting I say both.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1a6nhp/what_is_the_difference_between_yoroshiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1a6nhp/what_is_the_difference_between_yoroshiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
My understanding is that はじめまして (cf. 初め) is said upon meeting someone for the first time. I’ve seen people begin conversions with new people bypassing こんにちは and saying instead “はじめまして” (which is why you will notice many Japanese speakers, upon speaking in English, will greet you for the very first time ever with “Nice to meet you” instead of “Hi, nice to meet you”). Apparently it comes from the more formal phrase “お初にお目にかかります” (something like “meeting [someone of a higher status] for the first time”)
どうぞよろしく means something like “please be good to me” or “best regards.” Most textbooks I’ve seen place どうぞよろしく and よろしくおねがいします at the end of the self-introduction. So, the self-introduction and meeting sound something like:
“Nice to meet you [for the first time]. My name is ____. I am ___ years old. I am from ____. Please be good to me/I give you my best regards.”
はじめまして – literally “for the first time,” as in “we are meeting for the first time.”
どうぞよろしくおねがいします – a catch all term wishing the listener will act in accordance to the speaker’s wishes. In a greeting, it might work like “I hope we get along well,” “I look forward to working with you” and so on.
But they *don’t* both mean “nice to meet you”…..
You usually say both when you’re introducing yourself. The difference is which order you say them in. Japanese has a kind of a procedure for introducing yourself that we don’t really have in English. So, it’s not that helpful to think of those phrases in terms of their English translations. For this, it’s more helpful to think of them in terms of when you say them.
This is the procedure, in order.
1. はじめまして
2. Say your name and maybe a detail or two about yourself.
3. どうぞよろしくor よろしくおねがいします
Japanese has a few phrases like this, where it’s easier to think of when you say them rather than what they mean. いただきます is a good example. Japanese people will say this before they start eating a meal. If you’re watching a movie or show in Japanese with subtitles, they will usually put something like “let’s eat”, but there’s not really a good translation for English because we don’t have a specific word or phrase we say before we start eating. It’s easier to think of it as “the thing you say before you start eating”.