I mean you just express it a different way. Only about 20-30% of langauges have the word "have". In english you say "He has a book" while in hungarian you would say "He has a book at him". This doesnt mean people dont possess stuff in hungary and im not gonna write a clickbait article about how hungary is a radical post-marxist collectivist country where people dont even understand possession. Okay, i mightve went over the top but you get it.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2026
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They state that there is no word for please, then go on to say that you can add tack/takk/tak for the same effect. Make up your mind, tack
Norwegian has 'x, vær så snill' which is functionally 'x, please' so far as I can tell. Adding 'takk' (thanks) at the end of a sentence is another way.
Dutch also uses a phrase for ‘please’: ‘alsjeblieft’, which is (originally) ’als [het] je blieft’ meaning ‘if it is good to you’.
But ‘believen’ in this sense is quite archaic, so many people just know the word ‘alsjeblieft’ as ‘please’ without knowing its original meaning (hence why it’s written as one word).
That's interesting! To me, it reads as 'if I (have) belief'; false cognates are fun!
Edit: s/toe/to me; I hate typing on mobile
Thinking of this later, isn't our English usage of 'please' contracted from 'if it pleases you' as in French "s'il vous plaît'? This would be closer to the Norwegian 'vær så snill' I mentioned in a previous post, I think? Looking at one source on old English, though, shows 'Iċ þancie þē' which looks like 'I thank thee' to me. It's interesting.
Doesn't Swedish have "snälla" which serves the purpose of please pretty well?
...and "vänligen"
We absolutely do. Both "snälla" and "... , tack" works as a translation for please.
We can even say "snälla rara", almost a 1:1 translation to "pretty please"
Don't know if it's like that everywhere but in my parts at least (mid-Sweden) using "snälla" like that would make you come across as begging rather than being polite.
In Finland, it'd be considered polite.
As in, Kan du hjälpa mig, snälla du? for example.
"Två öl, snälla" makes you sound like an alcoholic though
So, makes you sound Scandinavian.
We have several phrases that are used in different contexts in Danish, but no universal "please". I'm sure it is the same for other languages.
In Scandinavian languages the same reason there's no word for "please" in French, Dutch or Spanish.
Because having a short verb phrase does the trick just fine, there's no need for a single word to develop.
And in Finnish because in Finland thanking is much more important than in Indo-European cultures and Finnish has built its equivalent of the word "please" directly into grammar.
Vänligen? Snälla?
What do you mean "directly into grammar" for Finnish? A quick search says "kiitos" is please (and thank you?), but not sure if it's the same function as what you're saying for the other Indo-European languages.
The equivalent of the word "please" is built by adding "-isi" and "-ko" to the end of the word. Plus the personal suffix, such as "-t".
Mennä = To go
Mene! = Go!
Menisitkö! = Go, please!
Plaît-il ?
This has lost its use in french, as it was mostly used by servants toward lords, and politics turned it into something not that great first, and nowadays it feels too old (may be a bit as "thou" in english, it is not false, nor bad, just not used).
But should you translate word fore word, to please is "plaire" in french. And the common use is "s'il vous paît" (if it pleases you). For grammar, french use a conditionnal rather than the english imperative order "please!".
French has please though, no?
Not for what I know. They only have combination of three words, just like the Scandinavian languages do.
And the question was specifically why they have a group of three words instead of just one word. In French they have "s'il tu plait", in Swedish they have "var så god", in Spanish they have "por favor" and in Dutch they have "als je het blijft". All are longer phrases, not just a single word like in English.
in Dutch they have "als je het blijft"
It's one word in Dutch: "alsjeblieft". There's also the more formal equivalent "alstublieft".
It's pronounced practically as one word. And so are its French and Swedish counterparts. But all three languages have it built out of three separate words. There's a reason Dutch shortens it as "a.U.b." :)
Oh I see. I assumed English is please because it comes from 'if it pleases you," which is the same thing as « s'il te plaît ».
All that frankly, I don't really understand the thought process behind the question. Why is it relevant that the phrase has several words instead of one?
But, the person asking the question has their reasons and explaining them all would make for a very long post to read.
At least in Finnish there are ways to communicate politeness without a separate "please" -word. For example, "Can I have..." (="saisinko...") is already considered polite enough.
I think kiitos and olkaa hyvä, etc are good enough equivalents for "please". Theres not a straight one word translation for "please" but theres multiple options for a replacement.
Also kiitos 🤗
True, apart from "ursäkta mig" there is nothing in swedish. You can thank people in advance
Dictionaries may be wrong but there are example sentences of their words for please:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vennligst https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sn%C3%A4lla#Swedish
"I've never heard of anyone sending a physical thank you card after a job interview or something similar," she said
Is that a thing? I've never heard of that neither.
Boomers did all kinds of bootlicking shit and then shit posted about handshakes for seventy years.