
How to say "please" in Japanese; get expert tips and instruction on learning some Japanese phrases for traveling in this free foreign language video.
All Videos In The Series, "Practical Japanese Phrases for Traveling"
"We have talked about how polite Japanese people are, yes we like to talk everything polite. So, I teach you a magic word which we have been using before, it is please. And, you can just use this one word for everything. It is onegai shimasu. We learned it in actually the first show but I want to use this and practice with you now. The rule is, you can just use with any noun, before onegai shimasu. For example, you are at the restaurant and you want tea, you say tea followed by onegai shimasu, right. And if you are, lets say, in a taxi, if you want to go to a hotel, say nico hotel, you say nico hotel onegai shimasu. As long as it is a noun it makes sense. So let's practice. Let's say you are in a taxi and you what to go to Tokyo Station, Station is Iki. What do you say? Yes, Tokyo Iki Onegai shimasu. If you just say Tokyo Iki to a taxi driver, he thinks, Oh, it's so rude. So, it's good to add onegai shimasu at the end, OK?"
Expert Village: Yuu Asakura
Video Series: Culture & Society
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Comments
zephyrsky said
on 3/2/2008 Is it pronounced shimas when used with a noun rather than shimasu? I'm a little confused