Interesting trivia: In Japanese you can say “thank you” in the past tense by conjugating “gozaimasu”. You then use the past tense “thank you” for favors that people did in the past. Example: If someone gave you a book you would use the present tense “thanks” because it was happening right now. But if someone mailed you a book you would use the past tense “thanks” the next time you saw them because the favor of mailing you the book was also a past tense event.
But wait! We don’t know how to conjugate for the past! I guess we’d better do something about that.
Vocabulary
ありがとう = thank you
どうも = thanks
ございま = extremely formal, ancient verb. Usually shows up in set phrases.
Transcript
言語ガールズ #54
There’s A Song Stuck In My Head
Blue: Here’s that book you lent me the other day.
Yellow: ありがとう
Blue: Did you know you can make ありがとう even more polite by adding どうも to the front or ございます to the end?
Blue: You can even be super polite by using both at once: どうも ありがとうございます
Yellow: You’re going to need to do a lot more than return a book if you want more than plain ありがとう out of me.
Yellow: Like buying me lunch.
Yellow: Let’s do that. You buy me lunch and then I can practice using どうも ありがとうございます.
Blue: I think I’ll pass.