How to Say 'What's Up' in Japanese — What Natives Actually Say

If you’re looking for how to say “what’s up” in Japanese, the honest answer is that you’re asking the wrong question — and that’s not your fault, because almost every site answers it as a translation problem.

Here’s the thing: “what’s up” isn’t really a question. Nobody expects a status report. It’s a greeting — a signal that says I see you, and the door to a conversation is open. Japanese has its own greeting system that performs exactly that function, but it’s built out of completely different raw material. So instead of hunting for a translation, you want to find the phrase that does the same job.

And that’s where most learners get stuck, because the phrases textbooks hand you — 「おっす」, 「よう」, 「元気？」 — are not what you’ll actually hear when you walk into a Japanese office or meet a friend at the station.

The Short Answer: How to Say “What’s Up” in Japanese

If you want one takeaway, it’s this: the closest functional equivalent of “what’s up” in Japanese is the 「お疲れ」 family.

• Casual: 「おつかれー」 (otsukare~) / 「お疲れっすー」 (otsukare-ssu~)
• Semi-polite: 「お疲れ様ですー」 (otsukaresama desu~)
• Morning: 「おはようございますー」 (ohayou gozaimasu~)
• Someone you haven’t seen in a while: 「お久しぶりですー」 (ohisashiburi desu~)

The 「お疲れ」 family is by far the most widely used, and — this surprises people — it works at any time of day. Morning, mid-afternoon, 9pm: 「おつかれー」 is fine.

One small note on notation: that trailing 「ー」 (written as ~ in the romaji above) is a slight drawing-out of the final vowel. It isn’t a spelling rule, it’s tone. A clipped 「お疲れ様です」 sounds businesslike; 「お疲れ様ですー」 sounds friendly and relaxed. It’s a tiny thing that makes you sound a lot less like a textbook.

What Textbooks Teach vs. What Japanese People Actually Say

Search “how to say what’s up in Japanese” and you’ll get the same three answers everywhere. Here’s what they actually sound like to a native ear.

「おっす」 (ossu)

Taught as: a casual “hey.”

Reality: it’s real, but it carries baggage. 「おっす」 lives in sports clubs, martial arts dojos, and manga. When I hear it, I picture a shaved-head baseball kid greeting his senpai. It’s not wrong, and nobody will be confused if you say it — but it’s a costume, not a default. Very few adults greet each other this way in ordinary life.

「よう」 (you)

Taught as: “yo” / “hey.”

Reality: it sounds dated. There’s a distinctly Showa-era, middle-aged-guy flavor to it — the kind of thing a dad says walking into a bar he’s been going to for twenty years. Younger people basically don’t use it. (The clipped 「よっ」 survives a bit better among friends.)

「元気？」 (genki?)

Taught as: “How are you?”

Reality: this is the biggest trap, because it looks like a one-to-one match for “how are you” and it isn’t. 「元気？」 is a genuine question about how someone has been, so it’s reserved for people you haven’t seen in a while. Say it to a coworker you saw yesterday and it lands strangely — like asking a housemate “how have you been?” over breakfast. English “how are you” has been worn down into a pure greeting; Japanese 「元気？」 has not.

That’s the gap in a nutshell. The textbook phrases aren’t fake, they’re just not the everyday default — and greeting is one of those areas where being 90% right still marks you as a foreigner reading from a script.

The Greetings Natives Actually Use

Here’s the working set. For each one: who says it, when, and how it’s answered.

Want to hear what real Japanese greetings sound like? Check out 0:52 in this video — that’s exactly how it works in practice, right down to the drawn-out ending.

「お疲れっすー」 (otsukare-ssu~)

The single most versatile “what’s up” in modern Japanese. It’s a casual contraction of お疲れ様です, and while it literally means something like “you must be tired” — a small acknowledgment of the other person’s effort — nobody hears it that way anymore. It’s a pure greeting now.

Used heavily by men, and it crosses contexts freely: you can say it to a coworker in the hallway and to a friend showing up at karaoke. Time of day is irrelevant.

• 「お疲れっすー」 — “Hey, what’s up.”

How to answer: say the exact same thing back. 「お疲れっすー」 → 「お疲れっすー」. That’s the whole exchange.

Formality: casual to semi-casual. Fine with colleagues and slightly senior people you’re comfortable with; not for a client or a first meeting.

「おつかれー」 (otsukare~)

The shorter, softer version. This one is genuinely gender-neutral — women use it constantly — and it’s the default among friends and between coworkers on equal footing.

• 「おつかれー」「おつかれー」 — two people passing each other in an office, entire conversation.

How to answer: echo it. 「おつかれー」.

Formality: casual.

「ういーす」 (uīsu)

A deliberately low-energy greeting. It’s 「おっす」 melted down — the whole point is that it sounds like you can’t be bothered, in a friendly way. Mostly used by men, strictly with close friends.

Formality: very casual.

「おいっす」 (oissu)

Same neighborhood as 「ういーす」 but brighter and more upbeat. Friends only.

Formality: very casual.

「おはようございますー」 (ohayou gozaimasu~)

The one greeting that is time-locked — except when it isn’t. In most workplaces it’s for the morning. But in industries where people start work at all hours — entertainment, TV, restaurants — 「おはようございます」 means “I’ve arrived / my day is starting,” and you’ll hear it at 4pm without anyone blinking.

The casual version is 「おはよー」 (ohayo~).

How to answer: echo it.

Formality: semi-polite to polite. 「おはよー」 is casual.

「お疲れ様ですー」 (otsukaresama desu~)

The full-length, polite form of 「お疲れっすー」. This is your safe workhorse for the workplace: it works upward to bosses and senior colleagues, sideways to peers, and downward to juniors.

What makes it so useful is the distance it strikes — polite without being stiff. Outside of a genuine first introduction, you can say this to almost anyone in a work context and be correct.

How to answer: 「お疲れ様ですー」.

Formality: semi-polite.

「お久しぶりですー」 (ohisashiburi desu~)

For someone you haven’t seen in a long time. This is where 「元気？」 legitimately belongs too, often stacked right after: 「お久しぶりですー、元気でしたか？」

Casual version: 「久しぶりー」 (hisashiburi~).

Formality: semi-polite; the short form is casual.

What’s Up in Japanese on LINE and Text

Almost nothing changes. People type the same greetings they say: 「おつかれー」, 「おつかれっすー」, 「おはよー」.

Two things worth knowing:

Stickers do the work. A waving-character sticker functions as a complete greeting. Sending one and nothing else is a normal, friendly message — not a lazy one.

Skipping the greeting is also normal. Plenty of messages open directly with the actual point: 「明日って何時集合だっけ」 (“what time are we meeting tomorrow again?”). No hello. This isn’t rude in Japanese texting culture the way an abrupt opener can feel in English.

So When Do You Use 「こんにちは」?

Textbooks front-load 「こんにちは」 and 「こんばんは」, so learners tend to over-apply them. The rule is simpler than it looks: they’re for people you don’t have a casual relationship with.

• First meetings
• Shop staff, receptionists, strangers
• Formal or public settings

Between friends or regular coworkers, 「こんにちは」 is rare, and using it creates an odd little gap — as if you’ve suddenly stepped back and become polite for no reason. It is not the equivalent of “good afternoon” as a neutral daytime hello; it carries real social distance.

How to Reply: Just Echo It Back

This is the part that trips up English speakers the most, so it’s worth stating plainly: in Japanese, you answer a greeting by repeating it.

• A: 「お疲れっすー」 → B: 「お疲れっすー」
• A: 「おつかれー」 → B: 「おつかれー」
• A: 「おはようございますー」 → B: 「おはようございますー」

In English, echoing feels broken. “What’s up?” “What’s up?” sounds like a glitch — you’re supposed to return something different: “not much, you?” English greetings are built as call-and-response with two distinct parts.

Japanese greetings are built as a mirror. The repetition is the response, and it’s the most natural thing you can do. If you find yourself scrambling for a clever reply, you’re overthinking it — just say the same words back.

Quick Reference: Which Greeting to Use When

The Real Answer

“What’s the Japanese for ‘what’s up’?” doesn’t have an answer, because greetings aren’t vocabulary — they’re systems, and two languages can solve the same social problem with completely unrelated parts.

Look at what each one is literally doing. English “what’s up” is shaped like a question but functions as a greeting. Japanese 「お疲れ様です」 is shaped like an acknowledgment of someone’s hard work but functions as a greeting. Neither is being taken literally by anybody. Both exist to do one thing: register that the other person is there and that you’re on friendly terms.

Even the replies mirror each other in opposite ways. English wants a different phrase back; Japanese wants the identical phrase back. Different mechanics, same handshake.

In short: learn the 「お疲れ」 family — 「おつかれー」 for friends, 「お疲れっすー」 for casual work, 「お疲れ様ですー」 when you want to be safe — add a slightly drawn-out ending, and repeat whatever the other person says to you. That covers about 90% of the greetings you’ll ever need in Japan.