# Do all cultures have the concept of 'please' and 'thank you'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409 "2001-08-15T16:42:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/1 "2001-08-15T16:42:21Z")
Pretty much all summed up in the subject. Have all languages/cultures developed the concept of saying “please” when you want someone to do something for you, and “thank you” when it’s been done? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/2 "2001-08-15T17:40:29Z")
I suspect that the Klingons don’t even have words for “please” and “thank you”. ---
**Author:** ![Arken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/3 "2001-08-15T17:45:02Z")
Seems to me that American culture is losing that concept. I’m getting close to screaming ‘YOU’RE FRIGGIN’ WELCOME!’ to people who I hold a door for and just walk past me without even acknowledging my presence. Personally, I was yelled at by my grandmother every time I didn’t say please and thank you and IMO, she was absolutely right to do it. ---
**Author:** ![daffodil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@daffodil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffodil)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/4 "2001-08-15T21:32:10Z")
It’s about the same here [holland] really. We say; “Alstublieft” = please and “Dank U” = thank you, but those words seem to be endangered species. ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/5 "2001-08-15T21:39:02Z")
- In Danish, there’s not really a word like “please” - generally speaking, you use the form “May I ask for” instead, like, say, “May I ask for todays paper ?”. Thank you, OTOH, is there and used, although too little. S. Norman ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/6 "2001-08-15T21:43:27Z")
I can’t say that “thank you” is universal, but if it isn’t, then it’s amazingly close. I have verified that words for “thank you” exist in Arabic Bengali Cantonese English Esperanto French Finnish Greek Hebrew Italian Kazakhstani Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Portuguese Japanese Russian Serbo-Croatian Shawnee Spanish Swedish Uighur Ukrainean That’s 21 languages I’ve found that have words for “thank you,” and zero so far who don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/7 "2001-08-15T22:20:27Z")
Add Czech to the list: Djekuje (sp?) ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/8 "2001-08-15T23:04:58Z")
**Spiny Norman** wrote > [@](#): > > Nope. > > - In Danish, there’s not really a word like “please” - generally speaking, you use the form “May I ask for” instead, like, say, “May I ask for todays paper ?”. Sounds like please to me. ---
**Author:** ![Lodrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/9 "2001-08-15T23:16:50Z")
I can’t believe you forgot German! The words for ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are, respectively, ‘danke’, and ‘bitte’. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/10 "2001-08-16T02:15:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Redukter \* > \*\*I can’t believe you forgot German! The words for ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are, respectively, ‘danke’, and ‘bitte’. \*\* You got that backwards. Bitte schoen. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/11 "2001-08-16T05:02:01Z")
In Jamaica they find it very odd when Americans say “thank you” when no one’s helped them. Like in a store; “Do you sell maps?” “No, we don’t.” “Okay, thank you.” ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/12 "2001-08-16T05:09:56Z")
It depends on how loose your translations are. Though ‘May I’ is polite and has the same general meaning, ‘Please’ is basically shortened from ‘If it pleases you’, which basically is asking the person to do something only if it makes them happy to do so. It seems very meek to me, something you would say to someone you were afraid to ask to do something they didn’t want to do. ---
**Author:** ![Redboss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@Redboss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redboss)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/13 "2001-08-16T07:18:25Z")
I’d love to hear from our Japanese and Korean dwellers on this. My image of both those cultures is of many rituals surrounding everyday behaviour. What’s the facts? Redboss ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/14 "2001-08-16T08:11:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Redboss \* > \*\*I’d love to hear from our Japanese and Korean dwellers on this. My image of both those cultures is of many rituals surrounding everyday behaviour. > > What’s the facts? > > Redboss \*\* Don’t know much Japanese, but I know that “thank you” is arigato, as in “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto”. “Please” I think is either gozaimas or kudasai. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/15 "2001-08-16T08:16:45Z")
Kind of related to the topic. I used to travel in Denmark and Sweden a fair bit and it used to confuse shopkeepers when I asked (in English, to my shame) “Please may I have [whatever]?”, sometimes they would just looked puzzled, other times they would say “Yes, you can”, but not give it to me (it seems that they understood me to be asking whether I was allowed to have the item, rather than asking them to give it to me) ---
**Author:** ![Darqangelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@Darqangelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darqangelle)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/16 "2001-08-16T10:13:25Z")
Yes, Finnish does does have a word for “Thank you” (Kiitos), but they don’t have a word for “please”. However, my Finn friends do tell me there is a phrase that you can use, but most people don’t. I haven’t translated it, but I suspect it’s something similar to the “May I ask for” phrase. ---
**Author:** ![SolomonGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d07c76/32.png) [@SolomonGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolomonGrundy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/17 "2001-08-16T10:33:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > \*\*Don’t know much Japanese, but I know that “thank you” is arigato, as in “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto”. > > “Please” I think is either gozaimas or kudasai. \*\* _Warning_: rudimentary knowledge of Japanese follows; I am by no means a fluent speaker: You’re right, “argiatou” means “thank you.” And “kudasai” means “please,” but I’ve only ever seen it (see warning above) used with a verb, like “Sore oishi sakana wo kudasai” (“Please give me that delicious fish,” again, see warning above). I’ve always heard “Gozaimasu” described as an honorific with no meaning on its own, as you could say “arigatou goazimasu” to mean “thanks a lot, sir.” The only other thing I’ve learned so far in my “studies” is that all of that is barely scratching the surface; verbs have different forms based on “politeness,” in which the “please” and “thank you” are built-in. It seems as if half of Japanese, at least the way it’s taught to beginning speakers, is learning exactly the right way to express the exact desired level of politeness. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/18 "2001-08-16T11:54:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spiny Norman \* > \*\* - In Danish, there’s not really a word like “please” - generally speaking, you use the form “May I ask for” instead, like, say, “May I ask for todays paper ?”. \*\* I don’t know that we’re looking for words that mean exactly and literally the same as _please_ (“if it is your pleasure”), but any formula used in the same way, to soften a request. Norwegian has _Vær så vennlig_ (“be so kind [as to do something]”). Doesn’t Danish have something very similar? ---
**Author:** ![Damhna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Damhna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damhna)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/19 "2001-08-16T12:35:51Z")
There is no word for please in Finnish. You will generally ask for something by saying what you want.If you are being polite you might tack on a “yes” at the end. a la “uksi olut kylla” = “one beer yes”. Really more of a demand than a question. So apart from there not being a specific word for please the phrasing of a request is closer to telling someone what you want. The optional “yes” at the end does kind of indicate “if you are agreeable” but it is rarely used and can be a little insulting. That said Finns are by and large polite and a thank you (kittos) is normally used wether you are thankful or not. The word for sorry (anteksi) is used in many ways ; to attract attention , to say “excuse me” when getting by someone etc. etc. Very similar to the way in which we Irish use the word “sorry” all the time no matter how much we might like to think we are unrepentant Fenians. I found it difficult to get used to when buying things or dealing with service staff.Not having a way to say “please” is unusually difficult and makes one feel like something of a demanding boor. ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409/20 "2001-08-16T12:45:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bibliophage \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Spiny Norman \* > > \*\* - In Danish, there’s not really a word like “please” - generally speaking, you use the form “May I ask for” instead, like, say, “May I ask for todays paper ?”. \*\* > > I don’t know that we’re looking for words that mean exactly and literally the same as _please_ (“if it is your pleasure”), but any formula used in the same way, to soften a request. Norwegian has _Vær så vennlig_ (“be so kind [as to do something]”). Doesn’t Danish have something very similar? \*\* Oh, certainly. I guess what I was trying to say was that in English, you can soften just about any request by tagging the “please” on the end, whereas in Danish, you have to restructure your actual sentence when going from direct order to polite request. The _Vær så venlig_ (Danish spelling) is used sometimes as well, but it’s nowhere near as universally applicable as “please”, “s’il vous plait” or “bitte”. S. Norman [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-cultures-have-the-concept-of-please-and-thank-you/76409.md?page=2)