Zero. 🖕🏻

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

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.

Do programming languages count? :)

Here’s Go:

package main

import "fmt"

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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)

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 :)

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.

Zero

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