Asian languages are interesting. The character set is entirely different -- Chinese uses pictures as the base for the character set and Thai has a gazillion vowels but fewer overall characters thankfully.
Not all phrases translate directly. For example, the Chinese phrase "ni hao" is used in the sense of "hello" but literally translates to "I'm good."
Asian languages are also tonal. Similar to how English uses tone to establish emotion, Chinese and Thai use tone to establish the actual word being spoken. If an incorrect tone is used, the meaning of what was said can be entirely different.
Also, word structure uses some simple prefixes to change meaning. As an example, in Chinese, appending the latin sound "bu-" to a word generally negates what was said. "Bu hao" would translate to "not good."
Conversationally, I was surprised that the courtesy of saying "please" is not really used. I don't know enough of the language to say how respect is conveyed.
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