下さい – The Meaning of Kudasai in Japanese
下さい is a Japanese word for making requests politely. It comes originally from the word, 下さる which is a verb meaning to give. The meaning of 下さい is closest to please give me. Let’s take a look at how we can use it in Japanese
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When to say 下さい
You can split the usage of 下さい two ways.
- Asking for Things
- Asking People to do things
Asking for Things
In this situation, you are asking for the actual thing.
水を下さい
Water, please
You can use any noun like this. You can even drop the を which is more common.
Asking People to do Things
This works by changing the verb in a sentence to it’s て-form and adding 下さい after it. Pretty much you are asking someone to do something.
水を飲んでください
Please drink some water
水を飲まないでください
Please drink any water
As you can see from the two examples above, the request can be for a negative sentence or an affirmative sentence. So, you can ask someone to do something or not do something.
下さる is the Polite Version of くれる
As I stated already above, 下さい comes from the word 下さる. 下さる means the same as the word くれる in Japanese but is the polite version.
You can use くれる also to ask for things but it is more casual by dropping off the る.
水くれ
Give me water
This is pretty casual, if not slang. So, when you want to ask someone for something politely use 下さい instead unless you are with people you can be casual with.
