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.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    5·
    3 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.