Common Japanese Words

Japanese tourists have a tenancy to say "I am sorry" during almost any verbal encounter with strangers while overseas. They are renowned for saying  sorry in the most unlikely situations. This is because Japanese have been culturally and socially conditioned to “apologize” to strangers or people they don't know well. However, it doesn't quite work well in English and with the western mindset. The problem also lies with the Japanese interpretation of “I'm sorry” -  Introducing SU-MI-MA-SEN.
 
SU-MI-MA-SEN is a great power word. This one word has three meanings. It can be used to say;
"Excuse me", to get someone's attention
"I'm sorry", to apologize
"Thank you", to express appreciation

Most Japanese take “sorry” to mean SU-MI-MA-SEN. This is the reason why Japanese will often say “I'm sorry” instead of “Excuse me” or  “Thank you”. I consider SU-MI-MA-SEN a power word because of  its versatility, social and cultural importance and colloquial nature. You will be scoring big points with your Japanese friends if you can use SU-MI-MA-SEN to express the three meaning I explained earlier.

Related Expressions

 Japanese Vocabulary

Japanese can communicate a lot with few words. I strongly believe in learning vocabulary from Japanese rather than textbooks. Text books generally go into the grammar to much. It is somewhat typical and and very “Japanese” that many Japanese authors teach how the the Japanese language should be spoken rather than how it actually is spoken. Text books generally avoid colloquial Japanese and go for polite “textbook” language and grammar. Japanese Grammar is very confusing and difficult to learn for the beginner. So if possible make some Japanese friends and get them to teach you heaps of vocabulary.

Japanese will teach you single words that translate to phrases in English. This is the real spoken language. Japanese teachers and authors will generally teach phrases with the subject and polite verb forms.

Here are some one word phrases you would learn from your regular Japanese guy or girl.

Note: Rising intonation for the questions