Japanese doesn’t have a single all-purpose ‘hello’ the way English does. Which word you reach for is determined by time of day, the channel you’re using (in person, phone, text), and sometimes the workplace you’re in. Beginners who treat こんにちは as a universal ‘hello’ will get funny looks for greeting coworkers with it at 8am, or for saying it into a phone.
The three time-of-day greetings
- おはようございます (ohayō gozaimasu) — morning, until roughly 11am. Drop the gozaimasu (→ おはよう) with friends, family, or close coworkers.
- こんにちは (konnichiwa) — midday to early evening. The ‘default’ hello when time of day is ambiguous.
- こんばんは (konbanwa) — after dark. Replaces こんにちは once the sun is down.
The workplace exception: おはようございます all day
Japanese workplaces — especially industries with rotating shifts — use おはようございます as the first greeting of the day regardless of clock time. A TV crew arriving for a late shoot at 10pm will say おはようございます on arrival. Hospital night shifts, theatre staff, hospitality workers all do this. The logic: it’s your first greeting to colleagues that day, and that’s the morning of your work cycle.
Learners working in these environments sometimes get corrected when they switch to こんばんは because it’s literally evening — the workplace convention overrides the clock.
Phone rules
When you pick up a phone, say もしもし (moshi moshi), not こんにちは. もしもし is distinctly for phone calls and face-to-face use of it is a well-known joke (it’s what confused or aliens say in manga). In business contexts — especially when identifying yourself on a call — some speakers now skip もしもし and go straight to はい、〜です (hai, [name] desu). But for personal calls, もしもし is standard.
The writing quirk: は pronounced ‘wa’
Both こんにちは and こんばんは end in は, which is the topic particle in Japanese — and that particle is always pronounced wa, even though it’s written は. So the greeting sounds like ‘konnichi-wa’ but is written ‘konnichi-ha’ in kana. A very common learner mistake is to write こんにちわ (with the わ kana for the pronounced sound). This is wrong, and to Japanese eyes reads as semi-literate or childish.
Etymologically, both greetings are truncated sentences: こんにちは is short for 今日はご機嫌いかがですか (‘as for today, how are you?’), and こんばんは for 今晩は〜 (‘as for tonight’). The topic-marker は survived the truncation.
Register and casualness
- Most polite: おはようございます / こんにちは / こんばんは with a slight bow
- Neutral: the same greetings, no bow, conversational
- Casual with friends: やあ, どうも, or shortened おはよう / ちわ (very casual, shortened こんにちは)
- Very casual (mostly male): おっす (ossu) — among young men, athletes, or friends; inappropriate at work
Related greetings worth knowing
- お久しぶりです (o-hisashiburi desu) — ‘long time no see’. A common greeting after a gap, often used instead of a basic こんにちは when reconnecting.
- 初めまして (hajimemashite) — ‘nice to meet you’. Used on first meeting, before exchanging names.
- お疲れ様です (o-tsukare sama desu) — literally ‘you must be tired’ — functions as a workplace greeting and farewell. You’ll hear this dozens of times in a Japanese office.