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.

  • stelelor@lemmy.ca
    2·
    4 hours 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

  • RandomVideos@programming.dev
    2·
    6 hours 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

  • josteinsn@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 hours ago

    Define language… Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, English, French, German, BHS (Bosnian Croatian, Serbian), Esperanto, Czech, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish… i think that’s it.

  • randombullet@programming.dev
    1·
    9 hours 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
      2·
      8 hours 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!

  • jwr1@kbin.earth
    171·
    24 hours ago

    Do programming languages count? :)

    Here’s Go:

    package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Please and Thank You")
}
  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    4·
    18 hours 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.

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 hours 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”

        • Rose@slrpnk.net
          1·
          5 hours 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”.

        • NightFantom@slrpnk.net
          1·
          9 hours 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!

    • bufalo1973@lemm.ee
      1·
      15 hours ago

      Gracies -> Mallorca

      Mercés -> Cataluña

      Mercí -> ¿cerca de la frontera con Francia?

  • DeuxChevaux@lemmy.world
    8·
    23 hours ago

    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)

  • dave@hal9000@lemmy.world
    4·
    20 hours ago

    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

      • dave@hal9000@lemmy.world
        2·
        20 hours ago

        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…

  • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
    3·
    19 hours ago

    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.

  • Mr Fish@lemmy.world
    7·
    24 hours ago

    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.

  • owatnext@lemmy.world
    7·
    1 day 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)

  • jimmux@programming.dev
    3·
    21 hours ago

    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)