Question How do colleagues and staff say welcome to a new co-worker? Is yōkoso ok?

[Sxilderik]

Hello all

My (french) firm issues a Teams message to all employees everytime a new recruit has joined the team. They choose to use the word Welcome in many languages, but I'm unsure of the word they use for Japanese.
Is ようこそ ok in this situation, or should something like 歓迎 be used ?

They also use 歡迎 for Chinese.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Buntaro]

Sxilderik,

The whole sentence in Japanese for "Nice to meet you." is "Hajimemashite yoroshiku onegaimasu" (はじめまして よろしく おねがいします) (初めまして宜しくお願いします). You can shorten it to "Hajimemashite" (はじめまして).

If you are interested, I am reposting a YouTube video where new employees are greeted for the first time at a company. You can hear several people greet new employees from 0:47 by saying "Hajimemashite".

ようこそ is ok in this situation, but I prefer to say はじめまして.

The phrase "Huānyíng" (歓迎) is Chinese and is pretty much not used in Japan.

 

[Sxilderik]

Thanks, but when you say that 歓迎 (kangei) is not used in Japanese, I'm a bit puzzled.
I read that in firms, new employees were welcomed in "kangei parties"…?

Comment dire bienvenue en japonais, Yokoso et autres | Un Gaijin au Japon

Envie d'accueillir quelqu'un et de savoir comment dire bienvenue en japonais ? Rien de bien compliqué puisque quelques expressions vont vous permettre d'exprimer ceci sans difficulté.

www.gaijinjapan.org

 

[Majestic]

If the company is welcoming a new employee, its OK for the company to say (for example) ようこそマイクロソフトへ
("Welcome to Microsoft") or just ようこそ

 

[mdchachi]

Thanks, but when you say that 歓迎 (kangei) is not used in Japanese, I'm a bit puzzled.
I read that in firms, new employees were welcomed in "kangei parties"…?

Comment dire bienvenue en japonais, Yokoso et autres | Un Gaijin au Japon

Envie d'accueillir quelqu'un et de savoir comment dire bienvenue en japonais ? Rien de bien compliqué puisque quelques expressions vont vous permettre d'exprimer ceci sans difficulté.

www.gaijinjapan.org

That's correct, 歓迎会 (welcome party) is very common phrase and it's a common Japanese word. It's just not used in the sense of "welcome to the company."
Here are examples of how that word is used. 歓迎の英訳

A relevant example from that same web site:
Welcome to our company. 我が社へようこそ

Or, in summary, ようこそ is perfectly fine. That's what you'll see on any billboard or airport that welcomes people in multiple languages.

 

[Toritoribe]

There is no problem to use 歓迎 instead of ようこそ like in a welcome banner in your previous post. It's just that 歓迎 is a noun, so it's not used sololy in oral conversation. A sentence 歓迎します "Kangeishimasu" works perfectly fine (or ようこそ your company name へ。歓迎します。 Yōkoso your company name e. Kangeishimasu.).

Incidentally, 歡迎 is traditional Chinese characters mainly used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It's 欢迎 in simplified Chinese used in Mainland China and Singapore.

 

[Sxilderik]

Merci beaucoup !

So ようこそ and 歓迎 work equally in a such a welcome banner, but not in a proper sentence. That's clear.

And, as for the traditionnal vs simplified writing of the Chinese word, I noticed it too, and informed them that the choice they made was probably not the one they intended.

どうもありがとうございました!