2 Quick Tips About いただきます and ごちそうさま
Before people eat foods, they would say something thankful words or what someone feels about foods such as “It looks delicious.” for someone who cooks for us. Basically, natives would say いただきます before eating foods and ごちそうさま after eating them. If someone says nothing before eating foods and after eating them, he/she would be impolite. When saying both いただきます and ごちそうさま, basically natives would use putting their palms together. Today, let me introduce what you say before eating foods and after eating them. They are only two patterns.
いただきます (itadakimasu)
Let’s eat! / Dig in! / It looks delicious. / Bon appétit
When eating, not only Japanese but people from all over the country are going to say something such as “Let’s eat!”. いただきます has two thankful meanings. Firstly, いただきます can be used for people cooking something for you and secondly, for eating foods such as meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and so on. Before saying いただきます, you can put your comments for the foods such as おいそうだね (It looks delicious!). Ranging from children to adults, いだだきます can be used.




Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

ごちそうさま (gochisosama)
Thanks for the nice meal. / It was a great dinner. / I’m done!
When writing ごちそうさま as kanji, it would be 御馳走様. 馳走 means “to run around” for buying or gathering the foods a long time ago because there’s no supermarkets at that time. Furthermore 御 means polite language for foods and 様 means honorific word for people cooking something for us which were put, that is 御馳走様 or 御馳走様でした. For your information, 御馳走様でした is much polite than 御馳走様.





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