The Real Meaning of "Ittekimasu" and "Tadaima": The Promise Hidden in Japanese Greetings

Ittekimasu is not a farewell.

Today I want to introduce the four greetings we exchange every day at the entrance of our guesthouse: ittekimasu, itterasshai, tadaima and okaerinasai.

Watausagi welcomes many guests from overseas, and until now I have always done my best to greet everyone in English. "Have a nice day!" when they head out. "Welcome back!" when they return. 😊

Lately, though, my thinking has started to shift. It began when I learned what these four words really carry inside them.

Ittekimasu = "Go" plus "Come"

Here is the surprising part. Ittekimasu (行ってきます, ee-teh-kee-mahs) is two verbs joined together: iku, to go, and kuru, to come. Say itte kuru, "go and come," as a polite declaration and you have ittekimasu.

So the meaning is "I am going out, and I will come back." Not a farewell at all, because the return is sitting right there inside the words. Once someone points it out, it does seem obvious, does it not?

But the important part comes next. This is not only a matter of grammar, of two verbs stuck together.

"I will come home safely."

Is that not the feeling tucked inside ittekimasu, put there to reassure the person you are leaving behind? Not an announcement that you are going out, but a small promise made to someone close to you.

The itte kuru ne you say to your family. The quick itte kuru you toss to a friend. Without ever thinking about it, Japanese people declare every morning that they will be home again today, and every time they part, that they will meet again.

Put that way, is it not a rather lovely thing to say?

Itterasshai = "Go, and Please Come Back"

Then comes the reply from the person seeing you off. Itterasshai is itte plus irasshai.

Irassharu is the honorific form of "go," "come" and "be," and here it is understood to mean "please come back."

"I will go and come back." "Go, and come back." The words of the one leaving and the words of the one staying form a perfectly matched pair. ✨

And of course itterasshai holds the same feeling as ittekimasu. "Take care out there. Come home safely." It does not merely send you on your way; it wishes you a safe day.

What a lovely thing that is. Can you feel the beauty of the language in it?

Here is where it gets interesting, though.

Irasshaimase, the phrase called out to you as you step into a Japanese shop, comes from that very same irassharu. But irasshaimase means "how good of you to have come."

So itterasshai and irasshaimase look alike and yet are not the same thing at all.

Japanese can be tricky, can it not? 😆

Tadaima = "I Have Returned This Very Moment"

Tadaima, said as you come through the door, is a shortened form of tadaima kaerimashita. Only the opening words of "I have returned this very moment" survived.

This one, too, strikes me as a phrase overflowing with affection.

"Just now, I made it home safely."

It is not simply a greeting. It exists to tell the people waiting for you that you are safe. I think we Japanese should use it proudly, and it is exactly the kind of phrase I would love visitors from abroad to learn and carry home with them.

Okaerinasai

Okaerinasai, offered by the person welcoming you, is a shortened form of okaeri nasaimashita. The o- prefix together with nasaru makes a respectful construction, so the phrase receives the fact of your return: "how good of you to have come back."

And of course okaerinasai carries a hidden thought of its own: how good of you to have come back safely.

Japan today is peaceful and safe. But there may well have been ages less safe and less peaceful than ours, when people could not help praying simply for a safe return.

"Goodbye" Carries No Promise of Meeting Again

Now let me place these beside their English counterparts.

"Have a nice day" and "Welcome back" are warm phrases. I have used them every single day myself.

But they carry only their literal meaning: enjoy yourself, and you are back.

The feeling folded into the Japanese greetings is simply not there.

From Now On, I Will Greet My Guests in Japanese

Which brings me to what I have decided.

I want my guests from overseas to know what itterasshai and tadaima really mean, because English has nothing quite like them. I want them to feel the beauty of Japanese once they understand how the words are put together. And if they remember them and start using them, nothing would make me happier. 💕

So from now on, I am going to use the Japanese greetings when I talk with my guests.

Itterasshai when they head out. Okaerinasai when they come back.

And the day a guest answers me with ittekimasu or tadaima, well, just imagining it makes me happy. 😊

Summary

Today we have looked at the four greetings one by one.

Ittekimasu, itterasshai, tadaima, okaerinasai. The words look nothing alike, and yet the same thing sits at the centre of every one of them. Being safe. And meeting again.

The one leaving promises to come home safely. The one seeing them off wishes them a safe return. The one who is back reports that they made it home safely. The one welcoming them receives it with "how good that you are safe." Those small everyday exchanges turn out to have been connected all along. ✨

The English "Have a nice day" and "Welcome back" carry only their literal meaning. Both are warm phrases, but they do not hold the feeling that the Japanese greetings do.

Until now, I believed the kindest thing I could do for guests from overseas was to speak to them in English. These days I think a little differently. Perhaps hospitality is not only about meeting people in their own language. Perhaps it can also mean sending them home with a piece of Japanese to keep. That is the kind of guesthouse I want to run. ❣

Watausagi sits in Tsuruoka City, the gateway to the Dewa Sanzan, three sacred mountains in Yamagata Prefecture. The pilgrimage across Mount Haguro, Mount Gassan and Mount Yudono has been known for centuries as a journey of rebirth. To guests setting out before dawn, I will now say itterasshai. And when they come down from the mountains, okaerinasai. If you would like to walk the Dewa Sanzan, or simply slow down in an old Japanese farmhouse, please come and stay with us. 😊

You can also follow daily life at Watausagi on Instagram, where I share the guests we meet and the changing seasons here in Shonai. Do come and take a look. ✨

If you enjoyed this article, I would be delighted if you gave it a like or shared it. 💕 And tell me: what do people say to each other at your front door?