Ok, Lemmy, let’s another play a game!

And I honestly think this one’s more important.

Post how many languages in which you can say Please and Thank You, including your native language. If you can, please provide which languages and how to phonetically say them so the rest of us can learn!

I spent a fair amount of bopping around Europe in the early Aughts and as a native English speaker, I found everyone appreciating my bad mangled attempts at politeness.

  • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk
    0·
    8 days ago

    i can say thank you in more languages than i can say please in.

    perhaps that says something about me

    Obligado

    Dankeschön

    Merci Beaucop

    Thank you

    Gracias

    Domo Arigato (only in latin type, i have no chance of reading/spelling anything in Kanji)

  • owatnext@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 days ago

    “Please” and “thank you”. English.

    (Pleez ahnd thank yehw)

    “Oes gwelwch chi’n dda” ac “diolch”. Welsh/Cymraeg.

    (Oys gwel ook kheen thza ak deeolkh)

    “Por favor” y “gracías”. Spanish/español.

    (Pour fah vour ee gras ee AHS)

  • Onionguy@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 days ago

    German Bitte, Danke

    English U KNOW

    French S’il vous plâit, merci

    Spanish Por favor, graçias

    Italian Per favore, grazie

    Czech Prossim, djekuju

    …6 ig :D

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 days ago

    Languages I’m fluent:

    • Spanish (Por favor, Gracias)
    • Portuguese (Por favor, Obrigado/a)
    • English (Please, Thank you)

    Languages I can mostly understand but I’m a disaster speaking:

    • Italian (Per favore, Grazie)
    • Catalan (Si us plau, Merci (Technically Gracies, but most people use Merci))

    Languages I can speak small child like phrases and express some simple things (although I’m very rusty in both of them):

    • Russian (пожалуйста (Pajalsta), спасибо (Spaciba))
    • German (Bitte, Danke)

    Languages I can say “I’m sorry, I don’t speak X, do you speak English?” (Which I think is more important than just please and thank you)

    • French (Si vous plat, Merci)
    • Dutch ( [don’t know this one], dank je)
    • Finnish ( * , Kiitos)

    Languages I can say Please and thank you (because I’ve seen enough TV in this language):

    • Japanese (Onegai, Arigato)

    * There’s no word for please in Finnish, which you’d think makes the language sound harsh, but I think it’s the other way around, it makes everyone be polite by default, when going into a coffee shop and saying “one coffee” is the equivalent to “hello, can I please have one coffee, thanks” it’s hard to be rude.

    • bufalo1973@lemm.ee
      0·
      9 days ago

      Gracies -> Mallorca

      Mercés -> Cataluña

      Mercí -> ¿cerca de la frontera con Francia?

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 days ago

        I don’t really speak Finnish, so probably someone can expand better, but AFAIK they don’t have a word for Please. When I was in Finland I went to a coffee place with a friend, and noticed he said “yksi kahvi” which literally means one coffee, when he got his coffee he said “Kiitos” (thanks), I noticed no one used any recurring word that could mean Please, so I asked my friend and he said something like “They’re all being polite, we just don’t have a word for please, one could say something like: I would like a coffee, Thanks. But that’s just overcomplicated”

        • NightFantom@slrpnk.net
          0·
          8 days ago

          So like impolite would be “give me a coffee”, polite is “would you give me a coffee?” instead of “coffee please”. Makes sense, thanks!

        • Rose@slrpnk.net
          0·
          8 days ago

          Native here. I think this is pretty accurate. Politeness is usually tied to other phrasings or modes of speaking, and as an ESL speaker I just think “please” is just a word that gets sprinkled in. In everyday conversations like buying something, it’s kinda more polite to get the thing over with as fast as possible. If you just want a coffee, you don’t need more than “hey” and “thanks” to be nice, right?

          That said, it’s definitely not impossible to be explicitly polite: “Ole hyvä”/“Olkaa hyvä” (“[You] (2p. sg./pl.) be kind”) is basically “please” as in “could you do…” or “here you go, have this” or “go ahead and do that” depending on context. “Ole kiltti” (“[You] (2p.sg.) be nice”) is “please” as in “would you be especially kind to do…” But as you can see, these are basically direct orders, it’s “be kind”, not “please be kind”.

  • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
    0·
    9 days ago

    So, this is an odd one because I travel a lot and try to learn basic words in local languages, usually hello, please, thank you, sorry/excuse me, and numbers are my basic go to. For some reason, in a number of languages “please” isn’t something you get by default. I’ve found this particularly in southeast Asia.

    I can say please and thank you (and generally converse and read) in French and Spanish. In Spanish I find myself using “por favor” a lot. “You’re welcome” takes different forms in Spanish depending where your are, and what’s polite in one place can be confusing or even rude in another.

    I can say hello, please, and thank you in German, Italian, and Greek. I mostly said hello and thank you in Greece and Italy, rarely please. I’ve never actually used German in situ, I just know it from pop culture I think.

    I can say hello and thank you (and various other things) in Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay, Thai, Lao, Khmer, and Vietnamese. I might need to think hard for a minute or get a quick refresher so that I don’t mix some of them up sometimes, especially when I’m moving from one country to the next… I don’t think I ever learned please specifically in any of these, though I think it’s kind of built into the other things you say in a lot of them (especially Thai).

    So, please and thank you, 6 for sure. But if the goal is to talk about language basics for getting around as a visitor, I would say 13 :)

    • showmeyourkizinti@startrek.websiteOP
      0·
      5 days ago

      That fascinating. I wonder if it’s a cultural thing or a grammar thing? Most Asian countries have a stereotype of being polite so I’d take a guess at the grammar of Asian languages making it harder to put a mood changing word in a question maybe,

      • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
        0·
        5 days ago

        Yeah I definitely don’t know enough to say. You can definitely translate please in translators for those languages, but for whatever reason I just haven’t been seeing it in language basics. Once I spend more time there I’ll learn more.

        For Thai specifically, you say “ka” (if you’re a woman) or “kraub”/“kaub”/“kaup” (if you’re a man) at the end of everything you say. Whenever you finish a sentence you say it. I saw a woman relating a phone number, and she would say “ka” after every number. It’s all about politeness.

  • randombullet@programming.dev
    0·
    8 days ago

    Mostly thanks because that’s the only word I learned when I’m visiting.

    obrigado, obrigada - Portuguese Bitte/Danke - Deutsch dack - Dutch Gratzi - Italian Por favor/Gracias - Spanish Takk - norge Merci - French 不好意思。/ 謝謝 - Chinese ありがとう - Japanese Oi cunt / thank ye cunt

    • Luc@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 days ago

      dack - Dutch

      Dutch is alsjeblieft (informal), alstublieft (formal), thanks (informal), dankjewel (informal), or dankuwel (formal). The former probably means “as you desired” in old Dutch, the latter “thank you well”, and the formal/informal variants simply insert the right word for “you” (je or u). And then there’s thanks being commonly used. Or also bedankt, sounds kinda formal to me as well, not sure when you’d use that instead of dankuwel

      Just “dank” (maybe you wrote that and autocorrupt kicked in?) is not really a thing we say, it just means “thank” which you’d also not say by itself in English (unless you’re Rocky)

      Edit: writing “dank” in an English sentence feels like everyone will think our thank-yous are like dank memes. The pronunciation of the “a” there is as in Clark; the English pronunciation of dank would map to denk in Dutch and means think!

  • RandomVideos@programming.dev
    0·
    8 days ago

    Please and thank you

    Te rog si multumesc

    Bitte und danke

    I dont know how to explain how to say a word to someone if they dont speak romanian

  • stelelor@lemmy.ca
    0·
    8 days ago

    In the order I learned them:

    • 🇷🇴 Romanian: Vă rog / Mulțumesc (native)

    • 🇨🇵 French: S’il-vous-plaît / Merci

    • 🇬🇧 English: Please / Thank you

    • 🇪🇦 Spanish: Por favor / Gracias

    • 🇯🇵 Japanese: Onegai / Arigato

    • 🇨🇳 Mandarin: Qing / Xiè xie

    • 🇮🇹 Italian: Per favore / Grazie

    • 🇩🇪 German: Bitte / Danke

    • 🇷🇺 Russian: Pozhalusta / Spasiba

  • Binette@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 days ago

    English : Please, thank you

    French: S’il te plait, merci

    Spanish: Por favor, gracias

    Japanese: お願い、ありがとう(oh neh gah i, arigatoo)

  • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.comEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    I can only speak three but I really used to try to learn some others but suck at it. I praise people who can learn grammatically challenging languages

    • showmeyourkizinti@startrek.websiteOP
      0·
      8 days ago

      I’ve found that most people really appreciate even just the attempt at their own language. The fact that you’re trying goes a long way with most people.

      Excepting Americans and sometimes the French. /s

      • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.comEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        I fully agree! Paraphrasing the Nelson Mandela quote that got me into college and grad school “if you speak to a man in a language he understands it goes to his head, but if you speak to a man in his language it goes to his heart.”

        Idk I feel my partners English is received well by Americans but yes French and Parisians are something else

        • showmeyourkizinti@startrek.websiteOP
          0·
          8 days ago

          I actually really like most Parisians the only people in France I found to be rude were those who worked in the tourist areas like the Riviera. But honestly I can’t blame them tourists can be so annoying