I've only studied Japanese for two semesters, 10 years ago, so this is a
really basic question...

If I'm emailing a teacher at an American university (let's call him 塚中) that
I've never met before to ask a question about his class that I'm thinking
about taking, would it be acceptable to use「塚中先生初めまして！」as the first line of my
email before proceeding in English?

Would it be seen as friendly and casual (what I want) or off-puttingly
informal? Or just straight-up wrong?
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greetings email
Email greeting for a teacher I've never met
You could [use something
similar](http://japanese.about.com/library/blintroduction.htm). I don't think
a teacher at an American university would be off-put by that. I would not be
worried about it, right or wrong.  
(My personal preference: [name], hajimemashite. [message].)
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So, this guy has no idea who you are. And, he has no heads-up that a stranger
will be asking him to do something. Pure imposition. Regardless of language,
best to start with an apology:

> 恐れ入りますが、"name of class"という授業に関する質問があります。

or

> ご迷惑をおかけして申し訳ございませんが、"name of class"という授業について、お伺いしたいことがあります。

In English, I would say " _Professor Tsukanaka, I am very sorry to be
troubling you, however I have a question about one of your classes._ ".
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I guess that you're trying to use 「塚中先生初めまして！」 as a replacement for "Dear
塚中先生," or some other salutation. But I can't say it's a good idea to use the
初めまして sentence in the first line, because in a Japanese email, the first line
is commonly used for addressing a contact (organization name, department name,
title, contact name). And a greeting is usually written in the second or the
third line. For example,

> ～～大学 ～～学部 教授 塚中先生
>
> 初めまして、(Last name / Full name)と申します。

This is a common way to start a Japanese email, in a case like yours. The
phrase 初めまして is usually followed by the sender's last name or full name.

Using exclamation point, question mark or other emotional symbols is a bit too
casual in this case, because only traditional Japanese punctuation marks such
as 、 and 。 are appropriate to use in Japanese business emails. (In Japan,
writing an email to a professor is a formal thing, so people usually try to
write a business-letter-level email to a professor.) If you would write to
friends or family, it will be totally fine to use exclamation point and
question mark with Japanese words, though.

If you want to make the first line less formal, the following example would be
useful.

> 塚中先生
>
> 初めまして、(Last name / Full name)と申します。

This is less formal but still polite. The line break after the 塚中先生 is
crucial.

I suggest these polite ways to start an email, because I guess that if you
show that you know not only some Japanese phrases but also some Japanese
manners, it will make a good impression on 塚中先生.
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