Ed Brill

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1. 1  Jessica Stratton http://www.mattandjess.net | 9/30/2003 10:36:34 AM

   I think it's formal, 'thank you very much', instead of just 'thank you.' I know Matt used it a lot when he was in Japan, and he had to use a lot of things in the formal sense.

1. 2  Gayle  | 9/30/2003 10:56:36 AM

   Domo is a polite and yes, formal way of saying something in Japanese. "ka" at the end of a word or phrase is usually a form of a question. Wakaremas? ;o)

1. 3  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 9/30/2003 11:02:09 AM

1. 4  Gayle  | 9/30/2003 11:38:38 AM

   You are right....thanks mucho (or mucho gracias)...

1. 5  Tim Latta  | 9/30/2003 11:46:45 AM

   Being a local, and in fact growing up where a number of Styx members originated from, I got it, Ed.

1. 6  Jess http://www.mattandjess.net | 9/30/2003 12:15:03 PM

   ...but I think Ed meant that as we are all in agreement that everybody knows that the song meant "thank you, Mr. Robato", then what did the extra word mean? :-)

1. 7  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 9/30/2003 12:23:30 PM

1. 8  Bruce Elgort http://www.BruceElgort.com | 9/30/2003 1:11:05 PM

   Check out the new Styx album "Cyclorama" which also has lots of Japanese references on it. There is a whole song titled "Gengki deska" on it.

1. 9    | 11/15/2005 6:20:29 AM

   arigato gozaimashita is the same as gozaimasu except that it will be said after the favor has been done, rather than during or before it is done. so in other words, if a store clerk helped you find a product, you'd say "arigato gozaimashita" after they helped you (if you wanted to be super polite about it that is). when in doubt, though, just stick with arigato gozaimasu, as it always works.

1. 10  Oshane P.  | 3/5/2006 7:01:29 PM

   [But then what is the meaning of domo arigato, Mr. Robato]

   well domo = very much, so

   saying domo arigato =thank you very much

1. 11  Chris  | 5/23/2006 1:01:22 PM

   Gayle - It should actually be Wakarimashita-ka, desho.

1. 12  Jennie  | 6/21/2006 7:26:26 PM

   is it spelled w/ or w/o the 'u'? i've seen it in both ways.. it got me confused.. -_-"

1. 13  Jennie  | 6/21/2006 7:28:44 PM

   oh btw, plz email me if someone knows. i probably wont rmbr to come back here. arigato gozaimasu! :D

1. 14  Angela http://blog.angelaharms.com | 7/16/2006 2:36:36 PM

   For some reason I see it in English without the u. But from what I know of the rules of romaji, it should be there. In hiragana, it's there.

   Angela

1. 15  despes  | 8/5/2006 10:57:29 AM

   When we finish a phone confernece we all use Arigatou Gozaimashita. Most Japanese in that conferece say it, so I say it too. But while in the conference if someone say, Ok I will do this, then the other will say Arigatou Gozaimasu.

   Domo means lot more than thanx. It could mean, ok, or just aknowledge someones arrival, Or just an informal way of aknowledging onces friends while minglining.

1. 16  neku  | 10/9/2006 12:24:40 PM

   doumo = is polite form of very . arigatou = thanks and gozaimasu is a polite and honorific ending for plenty of japanese phrases. gozaimashita is simply past tense implying that you are saying , thank you very much (for doing that)

1. 17  Al  | 12/15/2006 11:34:15 AM

   in hiragana, a second "o" is spelled "u" but is pronounced "doomo" while being spelt "doumo". This applies to most hiragana.

1. 18  Maikeru Ryuji  | 3/31/2007 3:34:35 AM

   Hmmmmm.... What we're dealing with here is a couple of different problems.

   I'm a semi-language-expert so if it helps, I'm pretty much spot on. So, correct me if I'm wrong.

   First

   in my studies I've found that there's translation and transliteration, the former is translating one language to another. The latter is using the characters of one language (i.e. english) to "sound out" the words of another

   (i.e. Japanese). While this is all good and true, the confusing part is that besides transliteration for Japanese there is Romanji. Romanji is also like transliteration in the sense that it uses English to say Japanese words, however it is taught that with Romanji you'd only be able to speak it and not write it. I learned the vowels in Japanese were like Spanish, in the sense that there is only one way to pronunciate them, however writing them in English is different. you see "ou" and "o" are both correct, it depends whether you are writing Romanji or writing out a pronunciation.

   "O" would be for writing Romanji.

   "ou" would be for writing out a pronunciation.

   for most people saying "thank you very much" is:

   Domo Arigato Gozaimasu

   Second

   gozaimashita VS. gozaimasu

   this dives into verb conjugation territory

   simple:

   -Masu present/future tense

   -mashita past tense

   third

   I don't know how the song got started but being as that it was most certainly an English pun/play-on-words, I'd hate for anyone to create a sort of "Japlish" sub-language as it would be terribly confusing for those of us who are trying to learn proper Japanese.

   thank you very much for your time and consideration.

1. 19  Lisa-san  | 5/17/2007 12:21:44 PM

   Maikeru Ryuji is right, technically.

   However, I feel I have to elaborate on the difference between the "arigato vs. arigatou" point.

   "Arigato" is the Roma-ji for those of us who already know the word and understand the the o would be a long o. By long o, I don't mean pronunciation of course, I mean that the o is sustained longer (to use a musical reference) as in "Ooooh".

   This is why sometimes you may see this word spelled out as "arigatoo". It is the same attempt at transliteration. For one who knows the pronunciation of o in the "alphabet", we know that it is prounounced as "Ah-di-gah-toh" and not "Ah-Ri-gah-toh" or "Ah-ri-gah-too."

   Still with me?

   "Arigatou" is more of a direct translation of each "letter" in the Japanese "alphabet". This is, of course, assuming that one knows it. In actuality, if I was Japanese and spelling this word out letter for letter in English, I would probably use this form of Roma-ji as this English word spells out the hiragana symbols that are actually used in making up this Japanese word.

   It's all about perspective. If I was someone who wasn't totally familiar with the "alphabet" yet, it would probably be beneficial for me if others used "arigato" and "des".

   Unless of course, I was French-Canadian, in which of course "des" would be pronounced as "day" and it would completely throw me off.

   I digress. This was fun. Sign me up.

   Lisa-san

1. 20  samphors http://sambosamphors.blogspot.com | 6/7/2007 5:04:24 AM

   Very useful info here. Thanks for sharing :)

1. 21  David-San  | 7/21/2007 8:56:06 PM

   I had been wondering about the "ou" for some time now--thanks for the clarification!

   I will be traveling to Tokyo for two weeks in a few days. I have a barely infantile understanding of the language, but the information on this site has helped quite a bit.

   Thanks everyone!

1. 22  Ryuuichiro Namiki  | 4/21/2008 9:53:03 AM

   As a japanese, doumo for us just literally means THANKS. just the short way.

   wakalimasu ka?

   then if you add DOUMO ARIGATOU GOZAIMASHITA

   ありがとうございました

   it will mean, thank you very much!

1. 23  Jeannette  | 8/20/2008 11:36:52 PM

   Hi All,

   Am jumping on this one a bit late, but the anglicised spellings you are using for these Japanese words is also formally used in Japan - it's called Romaji.

   The correct Romaji spellings for the words in question are:

   - "Arigatoo gozaimasu" (the 'u' at the end is silent, as it is with "desu")

   - "Arigatoo gozaimashita"

   The latter is simply the past tense version of the former. Both expressions mean "thank you" in its polite form. Adding "Doomo" to the beginning makes the expressions ultra polite.

   FYI, "wakarimasu ka" means "do you understand?"... "ka" is always used to signify a question. "Wakarimashita ka" means "did you understand?", ie, "mashita" is always the past tense of "masu".

1. 24  rews  | 5/5/2009 5:21:12 PM

   Might be helpful to notice that the " i " in japanese is prononced like an " e " in english. Same goes with the " r " which is prononced like an " L " or 'rolling r'. I personnaly don't like the way Lisa-san said it should be prononced " Ah-di-gah-toh " the way i would say it is " Ah-li-gah-toh ". Probably only a matter of personnal preferences here but still , i think mine sounds better ;)

1. 25  fushicho http://n/a | 6/17/2009 9:10:14 AM

   rews, you can't just change pronunciation. I've only every heard it pronounced "Ahddigahto" The L, I believe, is more the Japanese attempt at making English's R sound, since many of our words would not work with a rolled R. Furthermore, you need to remember that Japanese does not follow the English alphabet, so we try to write it the best we can in English so that we can pronounce it, as others mentioned.

1. 26  Kal  | 11/11/2009 9:07:09 PM

   it is literally - a-li-gah-to. the li is the ri but its a rolling l like a rolling r - I study Japanese at university, and the phonemes - ra ri ru re ro are pronounced as la li(lee) lu, le(leh) lo.

   Domo arigato gozaimasu is the ultimate polite form rarely used. Domo is please(giving) arigato - thank you and gozaimasu is an extension roughly translating as very much - not literally of course.

   also:

   masu - present

   mashita - past

   masen - present negative

   masen deshita - past negative

   add these onto the verb - to go (ikimasu)

   ikimasu - to go

   ikimashita - went

   ikimasen - to not go (won't go)

   ikimasen deshita - didn;t go

1. 27  Walt  | 12/23/2009 10:30:26 AM

   Hi All,

   This is a wonderful site, and I'm getting a lot of good information. I'd like to contribute my own input - both to help clarify a couple of things for others, and also to see what kind of feedback I get regarding the correctness of what I'm saying.

   I preface this with, "I have VERY limited knowledge of the Japanese language".

   Firstly, my understanding has always been the "R" is rolled, which some people have a hard time doing, and so they substitute a "D" sound (eg. Arigato). It's also my understanding that in the Japanese language there is no "L" sound. Therefore they find it difficult to pronounce this sound, therefore it can't be a substitution for the "R" sound. I'm not sure I follow Fushicho's logic. The word "Arigato" is a Japanese word to begin with - they have no need to substitute an "R" sound. They just say it in their native language. Maybe you meant it's the ENGLISH attempt at making a sound that's not quite "R" and not quite "L" - a sound that's unique to Japanese? I mean no disrespect, I'm just trying to understand.

   Next, I have never seen this habit of using a "u" (such as in Domo or Arigato). That's interesting, but confusing. I did know that the "u" at the end of a word (like desu or masu) was silent or almost silent. My understanding was that, technically, it was almost silent. In other words, you STARTED saying the "u", but it got truncated immediately - as if it were chopped off in mid-pronunciation. That's probably either wrong, or a technicality that's unimportant, but that was my understanding. Am I wrong?

   Thirdly, could someone please explain to me the difference between kanji and hiragana? Thank you. I'm totally lost there.

   Lastly, I just wanted to point out to those who may not know (and if I'm wrong, please correct me) that the "i" in the middle of a word - like deshita or mashita is totally silent, as if it weren't there. So it would be pronounced in English, deshta or mashta (the "a" being pronounced like "ah")

   I really look forward to your feedback, as I'm quite interested in the Japanese language. I'm sure answering here would be helpful, but like someone else said, I'll probably have a hard time re-finding this site (I'm not on my own computer right now, so I can't bookmark it), so if you could e-mail me as well, that would be awesome.

   Thank you all in advance.

   Walt

1. 28  Walt  | 12/23/2009 10:36:05 AM

   PS. I don't see a place for people to see my e-mail address so, here it is: wchamberlain@comcast.net.

   If you could put "Japanese Language Thread" in the subject line, that would be helpful.

   Thank you,

   Walt

1. 29  Walt  | 12/24/2009 1:13:41 PM

   PPS. I've been thinking about it, and it occurred to me that perhaps what Fushicho meant was more when Japanese people try to pronounce English words. This is sort of the opposite of what we're talking about, which is where I got confused, but I see your point, Fushicho - and I see how it ties in here.

   It's still not really an "L", though. The best way I can describe it would be a compact disk getting stuck on a "D" sound - you know that super fast stutter (or shudder) that happens? The best example I can think of is in the movie Black Rain. When Tomisaburo Wakayama is talking to Michael Douglas about when the B-29's came and dropped the bomb. He describes the rain as "black rain". It's the way he says "black" that I'm talking about.

1. 30  matt  | 2/24/2010 6:32:13 AM

   u guys keep beating this dead horse.. you have a JAPANESE person clear this issue in post 22.. but still..

   onto something else.. next lesson

1. 31  Lisa-san  | 2/3/2011 10:18:31 PM

   I am not a language pro by all means, but I am a big fan of grammar and language. With that said, I have a few points to make;

   1. The Japanese written language is based on three 'alphabets;' Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. If my memory serves, Hiragana and Katakana have about 46 phonetic characters each reflecting the same phonetic sounds, but with different characters. The purpose of this is to show when a 'native' or 'foreign' word is being used.

   2. Japanese phonetics do not have the English R or L sound - at all - in Hiragana or Katakana.

   3. a) Fusicho makes a few good points on the pronunciation issues (post #25).

   b) When speaking Japanese, the R sound is pronounced (almost) as a D. It's more of a mixture between a very short rolling-R and a D. It is quite difficult to master when you are native English (Canadian or U.S.) Unless the in-laws are Italian, do not roll your R too long, people!

   c) Likewise, the L sound is very difficult for a native Japanese to master. They tend to substitute that English R because the 'li' is a little more taxing that the 'ri.’

   d) Walt (post #27/28), you are right about the letter ‘I.’ In the phonetic ‘alphabets,’ it is pronounced as a long (English) E, but in the word ‘deshita,’ it is pronounced like it’s not even there. It’s really only there because, even in Japanese, you need a vowel to break up the consonants for the flow.

   4. Kanji is based on an idea (it’s also Chinese). The latter two Japanese 'alphabets' spell-out the Kanji 'words' phonetically. Hiragana is partnered with Kanji to make conjunctions, prepositions and interjections (and a bunch of other stuff). As a guideline/rule, if there are no Hiragana characters 'joining' the Kanji, then you are reading Chinese, literally.

   I enjoy discussing language and languages – feel free to contact me about same.

   Lisa-san (embracingallofme@hotmail.com)

   P.S. - Just because you have a Japanese name or you may, in fact, BE Japanese, does not mean you know anything about the proper language (reference post #22 and post #30 referring to post #22.)

1. 32  Ummm...   | 5/30/2011 4:11:22 PM

   OMG This is confusing!!! To clear things up first, I'm not even learning Japanese, however, I have a friend who is, and my confusion is when I'm checking to make sure I have my Japanese correct people do not have a complete sense of accord.

   Lisa-san? (I thought that -san is a male honorific,) and Walt make the most sense to me. I'm not mad, just slightly horrified that I can't make a simple decision.

   1) Ok why are people saying that the "r" is pronounced like an English "l" or a "d"????? I thought it was like a Spanish "rr"...

   2) I am really confused now. Arigato gozaimashita?? What does that mean? Is domo arigato gozaimas(u) even correct?

   3) Explain to me the linguistic/conversational hierarchy of the Japanese "thank you":

   Japanese English

   Arigato| Thanks?

   Domo Arigato| Thank you (formal)

   Domo Arigato Gozaimasu| Thank you very much? (extremely

   polite/formal)

   ?????Domo Arigato Gozaimashita| I see that mashita is past

   tense, but how in the world can

   thank you be past tense?

   What exactly do "domo" and "gozaimasu" mean, and how do they play in changing the sincerity of the word "arigato", and how exactly does the tense change?

   From what Kal says, it would look like gozai could be said like this:

   gozai-mas(u)

   gozai-mashita

   gozai-masen

   gozai-masen deshita

   gozai-ikimasu

   gozai-ikimashita

   gozai-ikimasen

   gozai-ikimasen deshita

   ????? So if this is the case, then

   Ohayo|gozaimasu could also be

   changed to the above?

1. 33  Ben  | 8/30/2011 8:39:26 AM

   "domo arigato, Mr. Robato" is correctly translated as "I came of age in the early 80's and was lucky enough to have had cable television and MTV when MTV played music videos instead of shows about the Jersey Shore."

1. 34  Chelsea  | 9/13/2011 7:08:37 PM

   To Ummm...,

   I can't answer all your questions, but some answers are easy. San is not just a male honorific, it's a way of showing respect for either gender. Likewise -kun and -chan are for either gender as well as far as I can tell, but that's just what I've picked up from reading manga.

   I have always pronounced the Japanese "r" by putting an l before the r in the word, so I guess it sounds like "alrigatou." I can't vouch for my accuracy, and replacing the r with a d also sounds correct to my untrained ear, but it's definitely not the same as a Spanish r.

   I have my own question... how does "onegaishimasu" (spelling?) translate exactly? Every person I've asked has a different answer, it seems.