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Why people in Japan hardly ever say “sayonara,” and what they say instead

Casey Baseel a few minute ago
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Everyone knows that sayonara means goodbye in Japanese, but goodbye in Japan doesn’t always mean you need to say it.

You don’t have to be an anime otaku, foodie with a penchant for matcha and wagyu, or obsessive linguistics enthusiast that know that sayonara means “goodbye” in Japanese. Like loco in Spanish and merci in French, sayonara is one of those words that’s so well known internationally that it’s widely understood even by people without any personal connection to its home-country culture.

And yet, living in Japan, you’ll very rarely hear anyone actually say sayonara (unless you happen to be in a pre-college school, where students of such ages say it to their teachers at the end of the school day). As a matter of fact, when someone did say it to us the other day, it was startling, even if it was also very appropriate to the specific circumstances that was taking place.

But wait, if sayonara isn’t a commonly used phrase, how do people in Japan end conversations? Does one person just wander off once they think the topic has run its course, and the value that Japanese culture places on tacit understanding means that you’re just supposed to infer that the other person said goodbye to you inside their heart?

▼ Wait, Linguistics Samurai! I still had something I needed to tell you!

Nope. Japanese actually has several other phrases that take sayonara’s place in the vast majority of daily situations. Let’s take a look at a few, and then circle back to why sayonara usually isn’t used.

One of the most common ways to say goodbye when speaking to friends or peers in social situations is ja, which means “if” or “then.” That might seem like a pretty random choice of vocabulary, but there is a logical reason for it, which is that it’s a shortened version of sore ja, meaning “if it’s like that,” or, rendered more naturally in English “in that case” or “well then.”

In this situation, sore ja is itself a pared-down version of phrases such as sore ja, kore de kaerimasu (“well then, I’m heading home”), sore ja, ikanakya” (“well then, I’ve got to get going”), and the like. But if you don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of why you’re saying goodbye, Japanese social norms allow you to opt out of the explanation and just say “ja.” Used completely by itself, though, ja can sound a little curt, so to make it a little cordial the all-purpose emphasizer ne, or na among male speakers, is often tacked onto the end.

Speaking of adding things after ja, another option for that is mata, the Japanese word for “again.” In this case, it’s included as an abbreviation of things such as mata aimashou (“let’s get together again [sometime]”) or mata ashita (“[see you] again tomorrow”). And to multiply our options even further, if you want to sound a little more polished and polite, you can replace ja with dewa, a more formal word with the same meaning.

Mixing and matching these elements will give you all sorts of common ways of saying “goodbye” in Japanese that you’ll hear much, much more frequently than sayonara, such as:
● ja / ja ne / ja na
● dewa
● sore ja / sore dewa
● mata / mata ne / mata na
● sore ja, mata / sore ja, mata ne / sore ja, mata na
● dewa, mata ne / dewa, mata na

There are two other Japanese phrases which also don’t translate literally as “goodbye” but regularly get used where we’d say that in English. One of them is otsukarasama desu, which, as we’ve discussed before, more or less means “you must be tired,” but which is commonly said between coworkers when going home at the end of the day, since you’ve both put in a full day of work. Similarly, if you’re going home while someone else is still working, the custom is to tell them osaki ni shitsurei shimasu, meaning “excuse me for going home before you,” which can be shortened down to just osaki ni if you’re on friendly terms with one another.

But even knowing all that, sayonara does still mean “goodbye,” so why isn’t it said very often? Because sayonara has a very weighty nuance to it, so much so that it’s mainly used for situations where it’s not just goodbye, but possibly goodbye forever, or at the very least where there’s a very real possibility that you’ll never meet again.

▼ Hearing “sayonara” at the end of a first date is a strong sign that there’s not going to be a second.

Because of that, sayonara isn’t something classmates say to each other after grabbing ramen together. It’s what they might say to each other at graduation if they’re all going off to different colleges and there’s no real guarantee they’re going to meet up again. You wouldn’t say sayonara to your coworker Tanaka-san when you clock out on a Friday evening, but you might say it to him at his going away party before his permanent transfer to an overseas office.

▼ If your coworker walks out of the office while waving and saying “Sayonara!”, there’s a good chance she just quit.

In other words, when someone does tell you sayonara, it tends to stick with you, because it’s a sign of parting that might be permanent. When someone said it to us the other day, it was a bittersweet moment, so who did we hear it from?

The workers at Cold Stone in the city of Kamakura, the very last branch of the chain in all of east Japan, which we visited for one last ice cream treat shortly before it closed on October 31.

While he was waiting for his order, our reporter Mr. Sato briefly chatted with the staff about the shop shutting down, and when they handed him his ice cream, they told him thank you, and also “sayonara.” This is Cold Stone’s second time to leave east Japan, and it wouldn’t be a shock if the company decides not to ever take a third shot at it, and that situation was reflected in the employees’ choice of words.

Now, none of this means that there’s a taboo against saying sayonara, or that it’s an old-fashioned phrase that feels out of place in the modern world. Sayonara does, though, carry a lot of emotional significance, so it’s a special phrase for special circumstances.

Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2, 3), SoraNews24
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