Dear Georgie, I ve read that Sayonara is very rarely used and is strictly reserved only when you are sure of meeting the person after a very long gap or if fate decides that you should meet him/her. So , sayounara could mean " Good Bye for ever" sometimes. I would also suggest you to learn romaji first before stepping into hiragana or katakana. It has really helped me doing so. For example if you wanted to say Are you Japanese ,its romaji equivalent is anatawa nihonjin desu ka? The romaji for the hiragana you wrote : sa shi su se so , ta chi tsu te to. Remember also" hajimemashite" is used only for the first time when you meet some once . Something like " Nice to meet you, " Its literal translation is " For the first time.." So when you are saying Hajimemashite to some one you are actually saying " Its our first time to meet..hope we shall be good to each other" or something like that. Wish all the best for your Japanese program.