Swedish, German, English, Spanish,

Estonian: Palun / Aitäh

English: Please / 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.

Please & cheers.

S’il vois plait & merci (beaucoup)

Terog & multzumesc/multzumeme (singular vs. plural thank you)

Bitter & danke

– & spaseba

– & tak

Qîng & xìexìe

– & diàhdiah

Had more, but forgot them. Have forgotten at the Turkish and a Miao language phrases.

Zero

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.

Off the top or my head: English, Spanish, German, Russian (assuming I remember from 35 years ago). On a good day I can remember Thai, but not today.

Spanish and German are well documented here.

So I dated a girl who took Russian in high school. I learned the alphabet. Sometimes I think I can still recite it, other times I stumble.

Phonetically (and likely butchered): speSEEba / paZHAlista

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

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 :)

Do programming languages count? :)

Here’s Go:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Please and Thank You")
}

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)

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)

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)

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.

Please (English)

• kiitos (Finnish)
• chōdai / kudasai (Japanese)
• s’il vous plaît (French)
• por favor (Spanish)
• bitte (German)

Thank you (English)

• kiitos (Finnish)
• arigatō (gozaimas) / dōmo (Japanese)
• gracias (Spanish)
• merci (French)
• grazie (Italian)
• kamsahamnida (Korean)
• xiexie (Chinese)
• tänan (Estonian)
• danke (German)
• spasiba (Russian)
• tack (Svedish)