Question on the use of Kudasai.

[felken992913]

Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Patrick desu. Dozo yuroshiko onegai shimasu.

I am new to learning Japanese and have recently begun complimenting the newbie lessons with the survival phrases. My question is since kudasai is not very polite can it be combined with onegai shimasu to be made more polite? For example: Kudasai onegai shimasu (or is Kudasai o onegai shimasu the proper form when combining them?).

Domo Arigato.

[iaai]

Kudasai is actually quite polite, I'd say equally as much as onegaishimasu. So to put it simply, there is no need to combine the two and I have never heard them being said together.

[felken992913]

Sumimasen.

I appreciate the quick reply and the information.

[Ally189]

Quick question, just building on things:

If Kudasai is quite polite, what's the more informal/casual version?

[iaai]

I can't honestly think of an equivalent word which has the same function as kudasai but is less polite..

However, say you're ordering a drink at a cafe or restaurant, it would be best to use kudasai / o onegaishimasu, rather than just saying 'coffee!' which could be seen as rude, even from the ultra-polite cafe staff's point of view.

You may come across a verb (in what is called the '-te form') followed by 'kudasai' which essentially means 'please do (the verb)'. In this case, the less polite way to say this would be to leave off the kudasai altogether.

[Ally189]

Ah yes! ~te form! That makes sense.

arigatou gozaimasu for the reply.

[Javizy]

o-negai shimasu is just a humble form of the verb 'negau' which has come to be used idiomatically to mean 'please', and kudasai is the imperative form of the verb 'kudasaru', the humble equivalent of 'kureru'.

As you can see, they're both already very polite forms, and having 'verb-imperative + verb' would make no sense, so you have to have one or the other. They're not always interchangeable though. It's possible to make politer (keigo) requests using other structures such as 'o + masu-stem + kudasai', depending on what exactly you're trying to say.

As for informal forms, like I mentioned above, 'kureru' is the neutral equivalent of 'kudasaru', and it's imperative form is 'kure'. This is very informal though, and you're better off sticking with iaai's suggestion of the te-form until you understand more about politeness levels. With o-negai shimasu, you can just drop the shimasu, but it sounds kind of funny in informal contexts anyway.

[fireemblem8088]

kudasai is the imperative form of the verb 'kudasaru', the humble equivalent of 'kureru'.

It probably doesn't matter yet to the topic maker, but kudasaru is not the humble form of kureru, it's the honorific form.

kureru doesn't have a humble form, due probably to the fact that by it's definition, the subject of the verb cannot be the speaker, and it makes little sense to humble (or belittle) others. But I'm not sure, does anybody know if other humble verbs like itasu or mairu are used when the subject is anyone other than the speaker? (I know this is a bit of a tangent, sorry.)

[Javizy]

kudasai is the imperative form of the verb 'kudasaru', the humble equivalent of 'kureru'.

It probably doesn't matter yet to the topic maker, but kudasaru is not the humble form of kureru, it's the honorific form.

kureru doesn't have a humble form, due probably to the fact that by it's definition, the subject of the verb cannot be the speaker, and it makes little sense to humble (or belittle) others. But I'm not sure, does anybody know if other humble verbs like itasu or mairu are used when the subject is anyone other than the speaker? (I know this is a bit of a tangent, sorry.)

My mistake. I usually think in terms of 謙遜語／尊敬語. A slip of the English tongue, I guess.

I suppose the closest thing to a humble form would be いただく, since the subject can be the speaker. Like you say though, it's not exactly an equivalent.

I think most humble verbs have honorific equivalents. You could say いらっしゃる for 参る and use お-マス形-になる for いたす. おる is one that can be used for both parties, however. I'm not much on 敬語 though, to be honest.

[Belton]

Quick question, just building on things:

If Kudasai is quite polite, what's the more informal/casual version?

If you're a woman you could try choudai.
Not so much casual but more feminine.
(I'm not sure of the generational implications though. There's a possibility it might be strange if you're young. )
My wife uses it all the time instead of kudasai with me.

Best to use with friends though and stick to the standard kudasai in most situations.

[j_bertoni2279]

I would rate onegai-simasu as more polite than kudasai, but I'd use kudasai in most circumstances. When a senior student at my iai dojo was asking whether I'd like some more beer, I said, "onegai-simasu", which seemed to work better than kudasai. Of course, with keigo, it's hard to know what's really the best, since the Japanese tended to be too polite to correct me directly.