Most of you probably already know this, but こんにちは (konnichiwa) is the word for hello in Japanese. Your first lesson will probably start by you and your teacher saying this to each other like eight or nine times in a row. I don't know what it is about Japanese people, but they seem to say greetings over and over again when they're uncomfortable. Just wait until you say bye to a Japanese friend, be it a language exchange partner or your teacher. I would bet you money that they say “Bye,” or some equivalent, at least three times before walking away, ending the Skype session, etc.

こんにちは
Hello.

Be careful about the pronunciation of こんにちは (Konnichiwa), because a lot of foreigners wrongly say こにちは (Konichiwa). We need that extra “n” sound in こんにちは (Konnichiwa).

A written explanation probably doesn't help much, though. So let's listen to people say it over and over again. Here is a YouTube video in which a Japanese teacher talks about こんにちは (Konnnichiwa). She also talks about おはようございます (Ohayou gozaimasu), “Good morning,” こんばんは (Konban wa), “Good evening,” and おやすみなさい (Oyasuminasai), “Goodnight.” Feel free to learn those while you're at it, if you'd like.

I want to stress that you should try to get your pronunciation of こんにちは (konnichiwa) to sound as natural as possible. To help, I have taken the audio of that YouTube teacher saying konnnichiwa and looped it into an audio track with a metronome. Listen to this about ten times, and you should have a pretty solid grasp of the correct pronunciation:

(Also, here is a male voice saying Konnichiwa.)

(And here is a female voice saying it.)

You'll notice that while she (the teacher) says this with nice, clean, slow pronunciation, the guy she is talking to uses a lazy, almost-abridged version that sounds like こんちわ (konchiwa). Notice also that they both stress and draw out the wa at the end. Listen, listen. Imitate, Imitate.

By the way, I can take the audio off of a YouTube video by using the 4K Video Downloader discussed in the section of the guide where I explain ripping YouTube videos to Anki flashcard decks, then I can edit the audio file using the program Audacity. Both of these programs are free.

If you want to add a bit of flavor, you could also ask your teacher how he's doing by saying 元気ですか(Genki desu ka), “How are you?”

Technically, 元気 (Genki) means something like “doing well; healthy.” です (desu) is the “to be” verb of Japanese (kind of… sometimes), and か (ka) is a question marker.

元気(げんき)ですか
Healthy + Is + (You)? ⇒ How are you?

In English, we'd say something like “I'm good,” or “I'm fine.” In Japanese, you can just shoot back with 元気です (Genki desu). By dropping the か (ka), this is no longer a question. In other words, you're saying “healthy” + “to be” ⇒ I'm healthy ⇒ I'm good.

元気(げんき)です
Healthy + Is + (Me). ⇒ I'm good.

And since your teacher is such a nice person, maybe he or she will ask you the same exact thing:

元気(げんき)ですか
Healthy + Is + (You)? ⇒ How are you?

And then you can just copy him or her:

元気(げんき)です
Healthy + Is + (Me). ⇒ I'm good.

Most exciting conversation of all time, right? If you want to make it more casual, then you can just drop all the ですand ですか business:

Here's a YouTube video by JapanesePod101 that explains everything in this lesson. There's also a free Udemy course that talks about a lot of this basic stuff.

If all of that seems pretty clear, then…Boom! Lesson #1 is complete. Just like that.

Next we have…