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.
Do programming languages count? :)
Here’s Go:
package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Please and Thank You") }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 10
Why is it that this got the most upvotes, compared to the more genuine comments in this thread? :)
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.
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)“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)
Real languages only, please!
/s
thought i missed the klingon…
went back…
ohhhhhhhhh…
Welsh is amazing I never knew them but I love how “Welshman” they sound.
Zero. 🖕🏻
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
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.
Gracies -> Mallorca
Mercés -> Cataluña
Mercí -> ¿cerca de la frontera con Francia?
The place I hear Merci daily is Barcelona
🤷♂️
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”
So like impolite would be “give me a coffee”, polite is “would you give me a coffee?” instead of “coffee please”. Makes sense, thanks!
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”.
Estonian: Palun / Aitäh
English: Please / Thank you
Three. English, Spanish, and German.
Which is your favourite?
They’re all pretty nice, thanks/danke/gracias.
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Swedish, German, English, Spanish,
Interesting, I seem to know “thank you” in a few languages, but not “please”. I wonder what that indicates…
Spanish: por favor, gracias
French: sil vous plait, merci
Indonesian: ?, terima kasih
Mandarin: ?, xie xie
Japanese: ?, arigato
German: ?, danke
Italian: ?, grazie
Aussie: oi, cheers/ta (/s)
Ah yes the classic Aussie Thank you - Ta, ya cunt!
Hmm.
German, French, English, Japanese (seriously, I never realized how much language I took away from martial arts classes! And in my post about counting, a significant percent of other people did, too), Spanish, Esperanto. I think that’s it - 6.
I can say “blindingly drunk” in Russian, which seems useful. Also, “trust, but verify,” - thanks, Raegan. Two phrases, neither of which are “please or thank you,” but matching the cardinality of your question so I should get a half-point.
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S’il vous plaît / Merci in French.
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Snälla / Tack in Swedish (I guess, not sure which word is best translation). Norwegian is something like var så snill / takk I think.
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Onegai / Arigatō in Japanese. (Or kudasai as someone mentioned)
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请 (qǐng) / 谢谢 (xièxie) in Chinese.
Had to check Polish spelling but proszę / dziękuję I think. Not 100% sure about proszę as I think that’s also used when giving someone something, kinda like “here you go”? On a better day I would’ve probably remembered bitte/danke for German too. :-(
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For me: English, Irish, french, German, Indonesian, Malaysian (same as Indonesian), japanese I’ve thank you in Turkish, Thai,
For Irish Please is: le do thoil (é). Translates as; by your will (it). Pronounce : le duh hull ay.
For thank you: Go raibh (míle) maith agat. Translates as may (a thousand) good things be/fall upon you. Pronounce : guh rev mee-la moh a-gut
For pronunciation, I’m using Munster dialect. It can be quite different for other dialects.
Other languages seem to be covered by others, so I thought I’d add the Irish in more detail.
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…
