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.
2 English and German
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)
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
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
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
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
Only English. The words are entirely different in the other languages I know.
You know don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just trying fucking it up is still heaps better then not even trying.
In the order I learned them:
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🇷🇴 Romanian: Vă rog / Mulțumesc (native)
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🇨🇵 French: S’il-vous-plaît / Merci
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🇬🇧 English: Please / Thank you
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🇪🇦 Spanish: Por favor / Gracias
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🇯🇵 Japanese: Onegai / Arigato
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🇨🇳 Mandarin: Qing / Xiè xie
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🇮🇹 Italian: Per favore / Grazie
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🇩🇪 German: Bitte / Danke
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🇷🇺 Russian: Pozhalusta / Spasiba
Thanks I knew spasiba but Pozhalusta I just learned.
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Zero. 🖕🏻
Ah yes the Texas thank you 😝
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
Thanks Romanian sounds quite challenging
Speaking romanian is the easiest part of the language. I have heard from people trying to learn the language that the grammar is hard
Define language… Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, English, French, German, BHS (Bosnian Croatian, Serbian), Esperanto, Czech, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish… i think that’s it.
But what about cobol and C++? /s
Swedish, German, English, Spanish,
Estonian: Palun / Aitäh
English: Please / Thank you
Do programming languages count? :)
Here’s Go:
package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Please and Thank You") }Why is it that this got the most upvotes, compared to the more genuine comments in this thread? :)
But how do you do it in Rust?
Here’s Rust:
fn main() { println!("Please and Thank You"); }Here it is in Commodore 64 BASIC:
10 PRINT “PLEASE AND THANK YOU.” 20 GOTO 10Here’s a horrific example of bash and JS mashed together
echo "(()=>{ console.log(process.argv[2]) })()" | node - "Please and thank you"or bash and python if that’s your thing?
echo "import sys; print(sys.argv[1])" | python - "Please and thank you"
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.
Can you expand on the Finnish? Is it engrained in the language somehow?
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”
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”.
So like impolite would be “give me a coffee”, polite is “would you give me a coffee?” instead of “coffee please”. Makes sense, thanks!
Gracies -> Mallorca
Mercés -> Cataluña
Mercí -> ¿cerca de la frontera con Francia?
The place I hear Merci daily is Barcelona
🤷♂️
Bissäguet, Merci (Swiss German)
Bitte, Danke (German)
Please, thank you (English)
S’il vous plait, merci (French)
Par favore, grazie (Italian)
Bonvolu, dankon (Esperanto)
Onegaishimasu, Arigatougozaimasu (Japanese)Two languages. English and Maori.
Thank you in Maori is “kia ora” (key-ah or-ah, but mostly said more like k-your-ah). Literally translates to “be well”, kia meaning be, ora meaning life/wellness.
Please in Maori is a bit less clear. There is the word “koa” (I don’t know how to phonetically write it, but all the letters are pronounced the same as above), but that’s a concept that came with pakeha (European settlers). Before that, it was more about the tone of the request.
Edit: actually I do know more, but English and Maori are the two main languages I know any of.
In order of fluency (for languages spoken, although German was only studied and any fluency has rusted out):
Portuguese: Por Favor/Obrigado
English: Please/Thank you
Spanish: Por Favor/Gracias
Farsi: Lotfan/Merci (plus many more elaborate ways of thanking)
German: Bitte/Danke
For languages I don’t speak at all, but only know because of friends who are native speakers:
French: s’il vous plait/merci
Romanian: Va rog/multumesc
Italian: Per favore/Grazie
Oh I like the Romanian please. That sound fun to say.
Yeah, Romanian is so weird to me as a native Portuguese speaker - there are so many cognates. I am good friends with a Romanian family and when they talk all sorts of words are completely understandable coming from Portuguese…
