I was watching a japanese show that other day and some one said thank you *arigatou gozaimasu* 有り難うございます ( ありがとうございます ) to a girl and she responded by saying *iie* 否 ( いいえ ) and I have noticed this a few other times people responeding with iie instead of do itashimashite can iie also mean your welcome or no problem??? *This is a little confusing to me.* P.S. __I am studing kana and kanji I hope I got the kana/kanji correct.__ :D My goal is to take the JLPT next year I am going for the level 4 for my first try I have 14 months to prepare. Do recomend any good study books some mentioned Genki 1 for kanji material do you know anything about this? Brian Sumpter ブライアン サンプター The name Sumpter in Kanji means bearing horse / packhorse. 荷馬 Kauma (this is how I pronounce it) is it correct??? Please let me know. Thank you very much. 有り難うございます

Brian san Konnichiwa!! :D :idea: Yes, *iie* or, *いいえ* is a common answer to *arigatou gozaimasu* - *ありがとうございます* implying: _"You're welcome","No worries","It's no problem"_ . :arrow: *Dou itashimashite* is quite a polite and humble language and is only used in formal situations, such as between business associates - it comes from the humble verb *itasu* - which comes from the regular verb *suru* or _"to do"_. :arrow: *Dou itashimashite* is loong (don't you think?) so in conversational Japanese, when someone says *Arigato! *you can respond, *Iie*, *Iiyo*, *Un un*, suggesting _"don't mention it"__ "oh it was nothing" _. You may also hear people answer, *kinishinaide* meaning _"don't worry about it"_. :wink: Yes, so many ways to answer a simple thank you phrase! -But there are probably more in English! (_don't worry about it, no problem, it's ok_...and so on) PS: That's great you are studying Kana and Kanji! And thank you for sharing with us that your name, サンプター means bearing horse / packhorse. (How interesting! :D ) :roll: 荷馬 is actually pronounced *_NI_uma* *にうま* not *_KA_uma*

Thanks for the replay and the correct way to pronounce my japanese name. What I have from my dictionary is this. 荷 = Ka Readings are カ (ka) or に(ni) 馬 = Uma Readings are バ(ba) うま(uma) or ま (ma) That is how I got Kauma. So whould it really be mostly pronounce Niuma instead of Kauma? I was wondering why katakana was used for ka and ni was hiragana. I guess I should have relized that it was Niuma because the hiragana is the phonetic way. My mistake thanks for pointing it out to me. Thanks again. Brian