どうも – The Japanese meaning of Domo: Thanks, Greetings, and much more
The Japanese meaning of どうも(domo、) is, thank you, hello, goodbye, somehow, in some way, very, and so on. This is a very common Japanese word but doesn’t have a direct translation.
For that reason, a definition is not enough. In order to use the word correctly, you will need to see a few examples.
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Simple Greetings for ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Thank you’, …
どうも is used as a polite, informal greeting to say Hello. It is usually used when approaching strangers or other people to ask a question, make a request, or initiate some other interaction. You could ask someone the time by saying, どうも、今何時ですか？Here this is like saying Hello, and excuse me at the same time.
After you get your answer you can respond with 「どうも」. Here, when we use ‘domo’ it is like a short version of the longer phrases for ‘Thank you’, and ‘excuse me’ explained below.
‘Domo’ is from ‘dou’「どう」meaning ‘How’, ‘What’, or ‘Why’
To explain the Japanese meaning of ‘Domo’, we will need to look at it’s roots. It is from the word どう（）which is a question word you use to ask how something or someone is. If you ask, どうですか？() it can mean “How are you” or “How is it.” When you add ‘mo’（も）to this, which is a word meaning ‘also’, ‘even’, or to express an amount, we get ‘domo’（どうも）.
If we want a direct translation, ‘domo’ would be “however”, “whatever”, “anyway”. But, ‘domo’ has much broader applications in Japanse than these three words do in English.
‘Domo’ can mean ‘Whatever I do’ or ‘No matter what’
If you keep trying something that you just can’t figure out, Or if you try something that is not working;
どうもできない
Whatever I do I just can’t do it
どうもうまくいかない
It just does not seem to work, no matter what.
Sometimes you may be reading something over and over and just can’t seem to understand it;
何度も読んでもどうも理解できない
なんどもよんでもどうもりかいできない
No matter how many times I read this I just don’t understand.
‘Domo’ can mean ‘Somehow’ or ‘for Some Reason’
If you have are not completely sure but have a hunch that something may be true, you can use ‘domo’.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/Let’s say you are in a restaurant and you go to pay for your meal but when you reach in your pocket your wallet is gone. You franticly look around, return to your table but it is not there. But you see the man who was sitting in the table next to you rushing out the door with his hands in his pocket. Here you could say,
あの人はどうも怪しい
あのひとはどうもあやしい
That person somehow seems suspicious
Or, pretend that you try to stop the man and ask if he has seen a wallet at your table. His response is that he has no time to talk because his wife just gave birth. Here you could be thinking to your self;
その話はどうも信じがたい
そのはなしはどうもしんじがたい
For some reason that is an unbelievable story
‘Domo’ is used to accent words such as ‘Thank you’ and ‘Sorry’
One of the first phrases everyone learns in Japanese is どうもありがとうございます() ”Thank you very much”. Here, ‘domo’ is used as an emphasis word. It can translate as, ‘very’, ‘quite’, or any other word that expresses ‘more’.
‘Domo’ is also used with sorry. So, どうもすみません() means “I am very sorry”. In these two examples, ‘domo’ is mostly just a decoration making the word sound more polite. In the same way it can be used with other words to give it a polite nuance.
どうもご親切に
どうもごしんせつに
That is very kind of you
どうもご丁寧に
どうもごていねいに
That is very polite of you
‘Domo’ is a word that adds Emotion to some phrases
This is the hardest definition to explain the meaning for. For example, if you are in some inconvenient situation you could say,
どうも困ったな
どうもこまったな
What should I do?
How can I take care of this
I am really troubled by this.
Here, we could just have said 困ったな which means something close to troubled. It means the same thing but by adding domo it just emphasizes the distress for the situation.
If it is a hot and humid day, you could say,
今日はどうも蒸し暑いですね
きょうはどうもむしあついですね
It is really hot and muggy today
Again, the meaning does not change but domo adds more emphasis.
‘Domo’ is very hard to translate
So, to wrap this up, the Japanese meaning of domo is just a hard to translate. You can use it in so many circumstances. There are definitely other ways the word can be used or other ways to translate it than what I could write here.
If you want to learn more Japanese I reviewed a dictionary of grammar series which I personally recommend and use myself.
I also have several other posts on various topics on Japanese Universe if you are interested. どうも！
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