LESSON NOTES · レッスンノート

N5Talking to real people · Sep 21, 2026

ただいま and おかえり: the four greetings a Japanese home runs on

Japanese has four fixed greetings for the front door — two for leaving, two for coming back — and each one is half of a pair that someone else is supposed to finish.

English has nothing like this. We say "bye" and "hi" and the same two words cover the door, the phone and the supermarket. Japanese splits the door into its own set, and the set is so automatic that a character in anime can say one word and you instantly know they are standing in a genkan with their shoes half off.

The basics

What do ただいま and おかえり literally mean?

Both are sentences with most of the sentence removed.

ただいま is the short form of ただいま帰かえりました — "I have returned just now." 只今ただいま (ただいま) means "at this very moment," and 帰かえりました is "returned." Cut the verb off and you are left with a word that means "just now" being used to mean "I'm home," which is why it never mentions a house.

おかえり is the short form of おかえりなさい, which is お + 帰かえり + なさい — a soft command built from 帰かえる (to return). Literally it tells the other person to come back, which sounds strange until you realise English does the same thing with "welcome back."

ただいま。 — I'm home. (said by the person walking in) おかえり。 — Welcome back. (said by the person already inside)

They are two halves of one exchange. You never say ただいま to someone who has just walked in, and you never say おかえり about yourself.

And the other two?

The leaving pair works exactly the same way.

いってきます is 行いって来きます — "I'll go and come back." The promise to return is built into the grammar, which is why it feels wrong to say it when you are moving out.

いってらっしゃい is 行いっていらっしゃい, with the honorific いらっしゃる — "please go and come back."

いってきます。 — I'm off. (said by the person leaving) いってらっしゃい。 — See you, come back safe. (said by the person staying)

So the whole system is four words in two pairs, and the only thing you have to get right is which side of the door you are standing on.

Who says which?

Situation The one moving The one staying
Leaving the house いってきます いってらっしゃい
Coming home ただいま おかえり/おかえりなさい

The pattern is worth memorising as a shape, not as four separate vocabulary items. If you are the one whose shoes are moving, you speak first. The person who stays answers.

Do people really say this every day?

Yes, in households that have anyone home to answer. A person living alone often still says ただいま to an empty room, the way English speakers talk to a cat. What is genuinely rare is skipping it while someone is sitting there — silence at the door reads as sulking or as something being wrong.

ただいま。ああ、疲つかれた。 — I'm home. Ugh, I'm tired. (casual, the greeting comes first and the complaint after) おかえり。ごはん、できてるよ。 — Welcome back. Dinner's ready. (casual, family)

Beyond the basics

おかえり or おかえりなさい — which one?

おかえりなさい is the full form and おかえり is the clipped one, and the choice works like most politeness in Japanese: the shorter it gets, the closer you are.

  • おかえり — family, partners, close friends. The default inside a home.
  • おかえりなさい — polite, to someone above you, or simply warmer and more careful. A parent might use the full form to a child returning from a long trip.
  • おかえりなさいませ — the service-industry version, used by hotel and shop staff. You will never need to say it, but you will hear it.

The same ladder shows up all over polite Japanese, and it is the same instinct described in です and だ: the politeness switch — the form does not change the meaning, it changes the distance.

Why does the anime wife say おかえりなさい、あなた?

Because あなた, in that one specific relationship, is not the textbook "you." A wife addressing her husband as あなた is using it the way English uses "dear" — and it is exactly the line that sends people searching for what おかえりなさい、あなた means.

おかえりなさい、あなた。 — Welcome home, dear. (a wife to her husband; old-fashioned, and very common in fiction)

Two things are worth knowing about it. First, it is dated. Real couples today mostly use each other's names or a nickname, and あなた in this sense belongs to a generation of drama, manga and Showa-era housewives. Second, it is the only common situation where あなた sounds affectionate. Everywhere else, pointing the word あなた at a person you are talking to ranges from distant to openly hostile — Japanese prefers the person's name, their title, or nothing at all. The full picture of why pronouns behave like this is in 俺おれ, 僕ぼく, 私わたし: choosing a word for "I"; あなた is the same problem viewed from the other end of the sentence.

おかえりなさいませ、ご主人様しゅじんさま

If you have ever seen a maid café scene, you have heard the service version of this greeting aimed at a customer: おかえりなさいませ、ご主人様しゅじんさま — "welcome home, master." The joke, and the entire concept, depends on the door greeting. The café is pretending to be your house, so the staff use the word you would hear at your own front door instead of the いらっしゃいませ that every other shop in Japan uses.

That single swapped word is doing all the work. It is a good example of how fixed these phrases are: change the greeting and you have changed what the building is.

ただいま outside the house

ただいま turns up at work, but in its long form. A colleague coming back from a client visit says:

ただいま戻もどりました。 — I'm back. (polite, returning to the office) 行いってきます。 — I'm heading out. (said to the office when leaving for an errand)

And separately, ただいま survives with its original meaning of "right now" in announcements and shop talk — ただいま準備中じゅんびちゅうです means "we are preparing at the moment," not that anyone has come home. That split is covered in ただ: free, only, and just now.

What you say when you are the visitor

If you are entering someone else's home, none of these four are yours to use. You are not coming back to your own house, so ただいま would be strange. The visitor's phrase is おじゃまします on the way in and おじゃましました on the way out — see おじゃまします: entering a Japanese home. Your host may well say おかえり to their own family in front of you, and that is the moment to notice you are the one person in the room who does not get to say it.

玄関げんかんで「お邪魔じゃまします」と言いってから靴くつを脱ぬぎます。 — At the entryway, you say ojama shimasu, then take your shoes off. (polite — the visitor's order of operations)

The everyday extras

Real doors have more than four words in them. These are the ones that attach most often:

いってらっしゃい、気きをつけてね。 — Off you go, take care. (casual, added almost automatically) おかえり、遅おそかったね。 — Welcome back, you're late. (casual, family teasing) ただいま、ただいま。 — I'm home, I'm home. (casual, said while carrying bags, half to yourself)

Common mistakes

  • Using ただいま when you arrive somewhere for the first time. It means you have returned. Arriving at a friend's house for the first time is おじゃまします, not ただいま.
  • Answering ただいま with ただいま. The reply is おかえり. Mirroring the greeting back is the one thing this system does not allow, because the two words describe two different people.
  • Saying いってきます when you are not coming back. Leaving a job on your last day, or moving out, calls for 失礼しつれいします or お世話せわになりました. いってきます contains a promise to return.
  • Using あなた as a general "you" because you learned it here. The affectionate あなた is a specific, married, somewhat old-fashioned use. Aimed at a stranger or a colleague it sounds cold or accusatory.
  • Adding さん or ですか to these. They are complete fixed phrases. おかえりですか exists as a real question ("are you heading home?"), but it is a different sentence, not a politer おかえり.

The four greetings at a glance

Japanese Kanji Literally When
いってきます 行いって来きます I'll go and come back You are leaving
いってらっしゃい 行いっていらっしゃい Please go and come back Someone else is leaving
ただいま 只今ただいま(帰かえりました) Just now (I returned) You are arriving home
おかえり/おかえりなさい お帰かえりなさい (Please) come back Someone else has arrived home
ただいま戻もどりました 只今ただいま戻もどりました I have just now returned You are back at the office
おかえりなさいませ お帰かえりなさいませ (Please) come back, humbly Staff to a customer

Practice

Answers are hidden — say yours out loud first, then open. Questions 3 and 4 are a pair: the same door, the two different people standing at it.

1. You walk into your own apartment after work. What do you say?

Show answer

ただいま。 — You are the one returning, so you take the returner's half of the pair. It is short for ただいま帰かえりました.

2. Your roommate walks in. What do you say?

Show answer

おかえり。 — You are the one who stayed, so you answer. With a roommate the clipped form is right; おかえりなさい would sound oddly formal.

3. You are leaving the house in the morning. What do you say?

Show answer

いってきます。 — 行いって来きます, "I'll go and come back." The person moving speaks first.

4. Your partner says いってきます. What do you say back?

Show answer

いってらっしゃい。 — The staying half of the same pair. Often with 気きをつけて ("take care") attached.

5. You are visiting a Japanese friend's home for the first time. Is ただいま right?

Show answer

No — おじゃまします。 — ただいま means you have returned to your own place. A guest uses おじゃまします going in and おじゃましました going out.

6. You get back to the office after a client meeting. What is the phrase?

Show answer

ただいま戻もどりました。 — The workplace keeps the full verb. Bare ただいま to your boss is too casual.

7. A shop assistant says ただいま準備中じゅんびちゅうです。 Has someone come home?

Show answer

No. — Here ただいま carries its original meaning, "at this moment." The sentence means "we are getting ready right now."

8. In an anime, a wife says おかえりなさい、あなた。 Who is あなた?

Show answer

Her husband. — In this one relationship あなた works like "dear." It is old-fashioned, and outside it あなた usually sounds distant or confrontational.

9. Why is おかえり a strange thing to say about yourself?

Show answer

Because it is built from 帰かえる aimed at the other person. — お帰かえりなさい is a soft command to come back, so it only makes sense pointed at the person who just walked in.

10. It is your last day at a job and you are walking out for good. Is いってきます right?

Show answer

No. — いってきます promises a return. Use 失礼しつれいします, or お世話せわになりました to thank people for having looked after you.

FAQ

What is the difference between おかえり and おかえりなさい? Only politeness and warmth. おかえり is the everyday family form; おかえりなさい is the full one, used to someone above you, to a child back from something big, or by anyone who simply wants to sound a little more careful.

Do Japanese people living alone say ただいま? Many do, to nobody. It is a habit attached to the door rather than to an audience, and plenty of people say it to a pet or to the room.

Is おかえりなさい ever used outside the home? Yes — in hotels, in shops with regular customers, and in maid cafés, always in the おかえりなさいませ form. The point is to make the place feel like the customer's own house, which is why it replaces the normal いらっしゃいませ.

Can I say ただいま to my host family in Japan? Yes, and you should. Once you are living there, you are returning to your own house. Say ただいま at the door and expect おかえり back.

What is the reply to ただいま if I am busy? おかえり on its own is complete. You do not need a sentence, and a call of おかえり〜 from another room is perfectly normal.

Does いってらっしゃい change for a group? No. All four phrases are fixed and do not take plurals, subjects or particles. You can add 気きをつけて or 行いってらっしゃいませ for politeness, but the core word stays as it is.

Vocabulary from this article

Tap the block to select all of it, then copy. In Anki: File → Import, note type Basic, separator Tab — the first column becomes the front, the second the back.

ただいま	ただいま — I'm home; just now
おかえり	おかえり — welcome back (casual)
お帰りなさい	おかえりなさい — welcome back (polite)
行ってきます	いってきます — I'm off (and coming back)
行っていらっしゃい	いってらっしゃい — see you, come back safe
帰る	かえる — to return, to go home
戻る	もどる — to go back, to return
お邪魔します	おじゃまします — excuse me for intruding (entering a home)
あなた	あなた — you; dear (wife to husband)
ご主人様	ごしゅじんさま — master (maid café address)
準備中	じゅんびちゅう — in preparation, not open yet
失礼します	しつれいします — excuse me; I'm leaving
気をつけて	きをつけて — take care
疲れた	つかれた — I'm tired
遅い	おそい — late, slow
玄関	げんかん — entryway where shoes come off

I'm Yuuki, a Japanese teacher based in Tokyo. I've taught on italki as a Top 1% teacher and watched over 1,500 anime. These four words are the first ones most learners hear a hundred times before anyone explains them, and the explanation takes about a minute: two pairs, and you only ever get to say half of each.

Book a trial lesson · $13

Sources: the author's own lessons and standard reference grammars.

More drills like the ones above, plus a timed JLPT-style mock test: Practice · N5

Want to try this in a real conversation?

30-minute trial lesson, $13. Times shown in your own timezone.

Book a trial lesson · $13