Making new friends: Introducing yourself

🇯🇵 [はじめまして。] is the standard thing to say the first time you meet someone. You normally use it once at the start, not every time you see them after that.

💬 [です] makes a statement polite: [ゆいです] = "I'm Yui," [アメリカです] = "It's America." In casual speech, Japanese often drops it: [ゆい。] or [アメリカ。] depending on context.

💬 Japanese often gives family name first, then given name, so [^LAST^ ^FIRST^ です。] is also common. In self-introductions, though, people may use whichever order best avoids confusion for the listener.

💬 [は] here is the topic marker and is pronounced (wa), not (ha). Japanese often drops [わたしは] completely when it's obvious you mean yourself.

💬 [は] is pronounced (wa) here, not (ha): [わたしはゆいです。] In Japanese, the "I" part is often left out, so just [ゆいです。] is very common for introductions.

💬 [よろしく] often doesn't translate neatly as "please." In introductions it means something more like "I hope we'll get along well," as in [よろしくおねがいします。]

💬 [おねがいします] gets attached to lots of things to make a polite request or set phrase. In introductions, [よろしくおねがいします] is a fixed expression, not a literal favor you're asking for.

🇯🇵 [よろしくおねがいします。] is extremely common in introductions, and it sounds natural even when there's no exact English equivalent. It's polite but everyday, so it's a very safe phrase to use.