As you may know, よろしく is one of the most essential words in Japanese, which is used when you ask someone to do something or when you show your willingness to build a good relationship with someone. And yet, little is known among non-Japanese people about its other (outlandish) variations, which I elaborate on in this post!
(If you’re fond of exploring Japanese synonyms, check my tool: Japanese Synonym Finder)
宜しく
While usually written in hiragana, よろしく is also written as “宜しく” in kanji, especially in formal writing. But you can use hiragana in any context and don’t really have to write it in kanji, as the Jōyō (regular-use) kanji list does not include “よろ” in the readings of 宜.
夜露死苦
This is よろしく written in improper/unofficial kanji characters. It literally means “night dew death suffering”, which obviously has nothing to do with the meaning of よろしく and only represents its reading (i.e. 当て字). This term used to be popular among ヤンキー (Japanese loutish youths) many years ago, but now it is regarded as lame and outdated.
See the following post to learn more about ヤンキー (Yankee):
ヤンキー (yankee) Means “(Old-Fashioned) Loutish Youths” in Japanese
4649
This is よろしく written in numbers. In Japanese, four is よん/し, six is ろく, and nine is きゅう/く. Therefore, “4649” can read よろしく by taking the first syllable of each number. Another Japanese word that is written in numbers sometimes is いいよ (114) meaning “OK”.
As in these examples, it is relatively common in Japanese to associate numbers with words, and people often do so to memorise numbers; and such act is called 語呂合わせ (ごろあわせ) in Japanese. For instance, “富士山麓（ふじさんろく）オウム鳴（な）く”, which means “At the foot of Mt Fuji, a parrot sings”, is a very famous and creative line that is useful for memorising √5 ≒ 2.2360679: ふ (2) じ (2) さん (3) ろく (6) オウ (0) む (6) な (7) く (9).
See the following post to learn more about 語呂合わせ and other Japanese words about studying:
しくよろ
This is a “back slang” for よろしく, where the order of よろ and しく is transposed. Such back slang words became very popular in the late 1980s and 1990s, and one of the most famous phrases is ザギンでシースー, which is 銀座(ぎんざ)で寿司(すし) and means “(to eat) sushi in Ginza”. While most of such expressions are regarded as outdated, some are still used today such as シャレオツ for オシャレ (“fashionable”) and グラサン for サングラス (“sunglass”). Some people also use back slang words to be playful or act like an old-fashioned person.
See the following post to learn more about other Japanese back slang words:
ヨロピク
This is a playful/non-serious way of saying よろしく, and it is regarded as outdated. You may use this to be playful and weird as to make Japanese people laugh.
よろ
This is a shortened version of よろしく and sounds very casual, and therefore should be used among friends only. As you may know, Japanese people love to abbreviate words like this, and there are tons of other abbreviated words and phrases. See the following post to learn those words.
よろしゅう [+ 頼(たの)んます]
This is a Kansai dialect word for よろしく and usually used in the phrase よろしゅう頼(たの)んます, which is よろしく頼(たの)みます in standard Japanese and means “I’m counting on you/Thank you in advance”.
Learn more Kansai direct words at:
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Six Variants of よろしく
– 宜しく (kanji)
– 夜露死苦 (improper kanji; outdated, used to be popular among loutish youths, ヤンキー)
– 4649 (numbers)
– ヨロピク (playful, outdated)
– しくよろ (back slang; playful and outdated)
– よろ (shortened; casual)#JLPT #には役に立たない— Takashi’s Japanese Dictionary (Takashionary) (@takashionary) October 26, 2021
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