My Japanese is basically limited to konnichiwa, arigato goizamasu, and kudusai, and I’ve noticed servers at restaurants saying what sounds like plain “gozaimsu” when bringing me my food. I can sort of imagine this making sense as “[here] it is”, but I’d also believe I’m mishearing something else and reducing to the only three phrases I know.
by Objective_Time_4442
5 comments
“Gozaimasu” by itself makes little sense, you’re probably hearing just the last part of “[mumble mumble something something] gozaimasu”. Especially shop workers say the same phrases over and over again every day, they tend to slur them. あっざっす *azzassu* is a common, stereotypically comical outgrowth of that (= arigatō gozaimasu).
Its probably “something something de gozaimasu” which means “this is”. Very polite way of saying. So if you ordered shrimp gyoza, they set it down and say “ebi gyouza de gozaimasu” this is the ebi gyoza
De gozaimasu → de arimasu → desu
Mean the same thing at different politeness levels
gozaimasu is a formal version of arimasu or imasu, and “de gozaimasu” is a formal version of desu. All mean “be/exist” (without de, can also mean “have”)
“kochira de gozaimasu” is one way to say “here it is”, idk if that’s what the servers are saying though. They might be saying the name of the dish for all i know.
Onegaishimasu?
When I was in Tokyo I notice the younger persons seemed to pronounce arigatou gozaimasu so fast only the last part can be heard? Might be Tokyo slang, wakannai.