Doumo Theory

[mayutaka8985]

A short while ago I was thinking about the word どうも "doumo" and how so far in the lessons I'm up to it says it can translate as such things like "thankyou" "sorry" and "hello". It made me think---this word seems like a kind of acknowledgment marker? For example, as hello it would be acknowledging someone's presence, as sorry it would acknowledge that you wish to apologize for a wrongdoing or similar, and for thankyou it would acknowledge that you're grateful for something. Does anyone else think so?
Would this kind of translation work? I'm not sure of any other meanings for the word yet, but I was hoping to find a kind of middle grounding for it, some way of telling how and when it could be used instead of memorizing the various meanings.

Please give me your input!
お願いします！

[mrarlen]

I don't know if you really have to remember all the various translations as the situations you use the term in.

To me, that's what language is about. Learning the context of what is being said.

For me, it's also the easiest way to memorize vocab too... put it in a context.

[Javizy]

As far as I understand it, it means 'very, quite', but because it's part of common expressions like どうもこんにちは、どうもすみません、どうもありがとう, you can use it on its own to infer the rest. Such inferences are quite common in Japanese.

どうも has a second meaning of 'for some reason' as well.

どうも猫が嫌い
I hate cats for some reason.