how to write "welcome" in japanese
 

I want to say "welcome" to japanese people in my store " Welcome to our store"
or just "welcome"?


Thank you

Neither. いらっしゃいませ ("irassyaimase").

Or youkoso.

They NEVER say that when you go into a store.

I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying, but if you've got green eyes and light brown hair sometimes people will say yokoso ;) . That's only for really small stores though. The other 95% of the time it's always irashaimase. They'll never say yokoso to another Japanese person though.

Also just いらっしゃい was said to me while I was there. Not that it is much different.

I take it youkoso is the informal, got it, Thank you!

Nope. ようこそ means "Welcome" and appears at signs at an airport or Disneyland.

If I have a shop I am going to say いっらしゃいませ.

I don't know if this will make it any clearer, but Yokoso is like what you'd see when you enter a town or city or amusement parks (as MMM pointed out) and that kind of thing.

When you go to a store they say irashaimase, or some variation of that.

When I said I've been told "yokoso" at certain small town shops I meant that those people were in a sense welcoming me to Japan because they probably just assume I'm here for a vacation or something like that.

So while both of those words could be listed in a dictionary as "welcome", their usage is quite different.

Another thing... I feel like I've heard "maido" when entering a small shop or cafe before though too. I've heard people use that when they answer the phone or when they want to say "thank you" and stuff like that... but I think I've heard it a couple of times where irashaimase would be said. People don't usually use maido around here so I don't really know the ins and outs of its usage.

まいど is a Kansai thing. It's something that shop owners use and is short for "Thank you every time for coming to my shop." You can hear old friends use it with each other, too.