Lesson 5 - Excuse me / Thank you!

Since we know how to say "who are you", now we have to learn how to ask someone else who someone is. The first thing you should know is Sumimasen. Sumimasen is a very commonly used word, for it simply means "Excuse me". If you add on ga to the end, you get the phrase Sumimasen ga (すみませんが...), which means "Excuse me, but..." and then you can go on to ask something. When you add ga on, it is more used for interrupting a conversation to ask a question. 

Hito (人) is one of the many words for "person" and the word ano (あの) means "that" or "over there".

Let's see a sample conversation between Kyo and Michiru regarding these words.

Kyo: Konnichi wa, Michiru san.
Michiru: Konnichi wa, Kyo san.
Kyo: Sumimasen ga, ano hito wa dare desu ka.
Michiru: Ano hito wa Dai san desu.
Kyo: Arigatou gozaimasu.

In this conversation, it starts off with two simple "Hello's", before Kyo asks Michiru, "Excuse me, but who is that person over there?". Wa is a particle that signals what you are talking about. So basically, seperate, ano hito is a person over there and dare desu ka is "Who is that?". When you put the particle wa in between them, it is telling you that Kyo wants to know who the person standing over there is. Without the wa, the sentence would not make any sense and you wouldn't know who Kyo was talking about. Also, when you write the wa in Hiragana, instead of writing it わ (wa), you would write is as は (ha). Despite this, it is still pronounced as wa (は).

Arigatou gozaimasu means "thank you". It is a very formal way to say thanks, and just like in Ohayou gozaimasu, the "u" is not pronounced at the end. Depending on who you are talking to, you can say "Thank you" in a various array of ways. Informally, it would be merely doumo, which translates to "very much". Polite would be Arigatou, a step higher being Arigatou gozaimasu (ありがとうございます). If you were to take it a step even further, you could combine the three and say Doumo arigatou gozaimasu (どうもありがとうございます). For now, arigatou (りがとう) is fine.