International Thank You Day

Hello everyone!

After being out of this platform for a few years I've decided that maybe it's time to get back and share some of my interests with you, as the quarantine is not winding down and I have more time than ever.

So, let's begin. I like to travel all around the world. Every time I visit a different country I try to learn some new polite words from it's language. Some of these words are difficult to pronounce but some of them are even easier than I've imagined. Majority of these phrases are similar to other languages because they belong to the same language family groups. To me, it seems like a mandatory thing while being in a foreign country to be able to at least know some basic phrases for greetings, gratitude, etc.

Probably the most important thing that you can learn - the word "THANK YOU"

As it is "International Thank You Day" on January 11, 2021, it's a perfect time to talk about how you could thank someone while meeting with them.

My native language is Lithuanian, so in my country, you would say "AČIŪ". Lithuanian language belongs to the same group as Latvian (which right next to Lithuania), but here we come up to one of the exceptions, where not a lot of words are written and pronounced similarly. For example in the Latvian language, you should say "PALDIES" while thanking which doesn't seem even close to being similar.

After all, let's look at the words from other European countries for saying thanks:

in Bulgarian	Благодаря
in Czech	Děkuji
in Danish	Tak
in Dutch	Bedankt
in Estonian	Aitäh
in Finnish	Kiitos
in French	Merci
in German	Danke
in Greek	Ευχαριστώ (pronounced as Efcharisto)
in Hungarian	Köszönöm
in Italian in Maltese	Grazie Grazzi
in Slovenian in Croatian	Hvala

Unlike Lithuania and Latvia, these last four countries are a better example of how similar words can be in countries from the same language family group.