Hi all!
I’m going to be helping to be a cashier and sell things to people at a bake sale at my local Japanese center. I’m going to be using English and Japanese and my Japanese is alright, but I was wondering if there are any phrases I should learn to be able to help people out? Thank you so much 
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いらっしゃいませ
ご注文はいかがでしょうか
かしこまりました
はい、 (item) になります
(price)になります
ありがとうございました。またご来店下さいませ
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Thank you so much! What would the なります sentences mean? Is it a polite form of です? Would it be like “this is the price” or “here is this item”
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yeah, it’s バイト敬語 (pseudo-keigo they use here in shops) for です
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Thank you so much
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ah, when they give you the cash, you speak the sum you received.
500円お預かりいたします
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バイト敬語, as a term, is used deridingly to refer to the keigo of people who misuse it because they only learned it hurriedly in preparation for a job… So maybe it’s appropriate here, but it’s still derogatory and I’m not sure we should encourage it.
なります has keigo usages, but it should be なっています or なっております (depending on context) when it means です and it is used for “is in a certain state”. 禁煙です > 禁煙になっています
になります for a noun is often misused by people in service contexts and just means something becomes something else. It’s not proper keigo.
For returning change, it’s possible to imagine it meaning that through the exchange the given money became the smaller value. But that’s just the standard meaning of the verb, not keigo.
でございます is the proper keigo version of です for presenting some noun.
Edit: while reading more I came across them discussing how some people go too far the other way and think になります is always wrong and only use でごさいます even when that makes no sense. It’s always something…
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not that you’d be wrong… you’re not
but we do expect バイト敬語 here. ハンバーグになります is hilarious, but it’s what people say and what customers would expect.
i’d use 申し訳ございません, even though the proper form is 申し訳ないことでございます, just because language is an organic, living being, and because people expect that sloppy wannabe-keigo they usually get here, which is, in a sense, correct by virtue of being in wide circulation.
as for the term バイト敬語, again, you’re not wrong, but it’s not like it’d be on a level with おい何やってんだコノヤロー, hehe.
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I mean, if they teach you to say something, then I guess you should say it, but I think it’s still worth knowing the context before sending someone with no understanding of keigo onto the front lines.
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I wish I had known more of these phrases before my trip to Japan so I could have known what the cashier at 7-Eleven was saying. She talked super fast!
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I was just gonna mention this. They also tell you how much change they’re handing you, do they not?
Also, do they ask if you’d like a bag, or just give you one without asking?
(On a related note, how do I say I don’t need a bag? I tried to say that in Kinokuniya on my last visit, and I think I flubbed it, but managed to get my meaning across all the same, fortunately.)
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ビニール袋が要りません
yeah, they usually also ask you if you have a point card
何々(whatever the name of your card)カードは、お持ちでしょうか
oh yeah, they also say ３１円のお返しです
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