Learn what the difference between 'arigato gozaimasu' and 'arigato gozaimashita' is
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| Hi, everybody! Hiroko here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher where I'll answer some of your most common Japanese questions. |
| The question for this lesson is... |
| What is the difference between ARIGATŌ GOZAIMASU and ARIGATŌ GOZAIMASHITA? |
| So, when your teacher lends you his book, you’ll say "Arigatō gozaimasu." |
| But, when you return the book to your teacher, you might wanna say the same thing again, "Arigatō gozaimasu." |
| Actually, you should say "arigatō gozaimashita" here. |
| So, what’s going on with this? |
| When you say "thank you" right after you received kindness or favor from someone, you say “Arigatō gozaimasu.” But, “Arigatō gozaimashita” is used when the action you’re thanking for is completely finished. |
| So, in the example before, you’re done reading the book and you’re giving it back, “Arigatō gozaimashita.” “Gozaimashita” is the past tense of “gozaimasu.” That’s right. It’s just a verb and it conjugates the exact same way. That’s easy to remember, right? Past tense verb, to thank for something that happened in the past. |
| So, what do you say when you’re on a train and a man offers you a seat? You’d say "arigatō gozaimasu." But then, when you get off the train and you want to say "thank you" again to him, you’d say? Right, "arigatou gozaimashita" because his favor was completed before. |
| Okay, one more example. |
| You’re hosting a party. How do you say, "Thanks for coming" to your guests when they arrive? “Arigatō gozaimasu.” |
| And when the party is over and your guests are leaving, how do you say, “Thank you.” |
| “Arigato gozaimashita.” |
| I hope this makes sense to you and you’re able to use “arigatō gozaimasu” and “arigato gozaimashita” correctly from now on. |
| Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them. |
| Mata ne! |
50 Comments
HideWhat Japanese learning question do you have?
Svetoslavさん
コメントありがとうございます😄
Please let us know if you have any questions :)
Sincerely
りょうま（Ryoma）
Team JapanesePod101.com
Arigato gozaimashita!
サナさん、こんにちは！
Thank you for your comment😊
We are happy to know that this lesson was helpful for you.
If you want to say "Thank you for teaching me ___", you should say
「____ をおしえてくれて、ありがとうございました。」
Hope you enjoy learning Japanese with us:)
Sincerely,
Miho
Team JapanesePod101.com
こんにちは。
If I wanted to say "Thank you for teaching me ____." to my teacher, how could I say that? I think I should use ありがとうございました but I'm not sure how to say "for teaching me.", Thank you for this lesson, it really helped me understand the difference between ありがとうございますとありがとうございました。
ビリーさん
ます is a present tense and ました is a past tense👍
Ernest さん
We're glad to hear that you found our lesson useful😄
Thank you for studying with us!
Sincerely,
Erica
Team JapanesePod101.com
I have know and used both phrases for many years but never knew the real difference. I thought ありがとうございました was the an honorific phrase; now, having completed this lesson, I know; ありがとうございました
Hi フランシス,
Thanks for your comment!
Good summarization!
Sincerely,
Erica
Team JapanesePod101.com
I summarized this as:
ありがとうございます。 = Thank you
ありがとうございました。 = Thank you for what you did.
Hi シリル
Glad to hear that you learned well with the lesson!
Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Cristiane (クリスチアネ)
Team JapanesePod101.com
Great explanation Makes a lot of sense Now I know how to use it properly Thank you very much !
ありがとうございました 😄