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Lesson Transcript

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!

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