Lesson 005 Thank You

Y: Perfect Chinese your way, in only five minutes a day. Welcome to this edition of Chinese Studio. I’m Yajie.  
Cam: Hi, everyone, I’m Cam. This daily show will teach Chinese at the elementary level, which is very appropriate, considering I’m just starting to learn myself! Hi Yajie, thank you for inviting me to the French Movie Show. I love it!

Y: You are welcome. I’m happy you enjoyed it.

Cam: Yajie, I have a question. How to say “Thank you” in Chinese?

Y: That’s just what I want to tell you today. Now let’s check Key words of the day!

***************** Key words of the day
Today we’ll learn a few of popular expressions of saying thanks. 谢谢你。Thank you. 非常感谢。Thank you very much. 不用谢。不客气。You are welcome. All in today’s Chinese Studio.  
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Y: When you want to thank somebody for doing something for you. For instance, “Thank you for passing me the salt.” Just say “谢谢” or “谢谢你”, which has the same order as that of in English. 谢谢means “thank”, and 你 means “you”. Thank you. 谢谢你.

Cam: 谢谢你(xièxie nǐ), Yajie. 谢谢你for teaching me how to say “Thank you”.   Is it right?

Y: Absolutely! And the response should be不用谢. You are welcome.

Cam: 不用谢. Bù yòng xiè!

Y: Yes. You can get the pronunciation of 不 by deleting the “sh” from the English word “bush”. And then you will get 不(bù). 不用谢. Literally it means “Don’t thank”, 不用is “There’s no need to…”, and 谢 is “Thank”. So the whole sentence has the meaning of “Don’t mention it.” But I think one thing is important. And that is the pronunciation of不 would be changed to bú, the second tone, when it’s put in front of the one that has the fourth tone.

Cam: Interesting! So it is不用bú yòng instead of bù yòng?

Y:Correctly!

Cam: Yajie, can I say不谢 (bú xiè)?

Y: Yes, it’s more casual to say 不谢than不用谢 in daily life. It’s just like “Welcome” is the short form of “You are welcome.” in English. So today we will learn the negative form of verb. Simply just need to put不 in front of the verb谢, 不谢.

Cam: 谢谢你(xièxie nǐ)。

Y: 不用谢。

Y: There is another way to say “Thank you”. 感谢 is the formal way of谢谢. It’s widely used in writing. For example, 感谢你.

Cam: 感谢你. Thank you.

Y: When you want to show your great appreciation to somebody. The proper saying is非常感谢. Thank you very much. 非常 is an adverb, which means “very”, “quite”.

Cam: 非常感谢. But the order of the words is different from that of in English.

Y: Yes, very much thank you. 非常感谢.

***************Key Words Reminder:
谢谢你。Thank you. 非常感谢。Thank you very much. 不用谢。You are welcome.
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Y: Also you can say不客气 as the reply to 谢谢. And it’s another way of saying “You are welcome”. 不客气. 客气 is courteous, so不客气 means “Don’t be so polite.”

Cam: 不客气.

Y: Great. Hope it will be useful.

Cam: Thanks. Certainly it will. Well, every one. That’s it for today. One more important thing, you can win a gift by answering the question of the day: How to show your great appreciation to people in Chinese? You can make a sentence. If it’s difficult for you to write Chinese characters, the Chinese alphabet or pinyin will also do.