>> Looking from the other side of the spectrum (the French side) I can
>> say Belgium occupies an interesting spot in linguistic space. I've
>> been to Bruxelles twice and I'm probably going back at the end of
>> this month. I'm still tripped up everytime I go to a store or Quick
>> and they say "s'il vous plaît" when giving me my food or whatever.
>Influence from Dutch (here Flemish) which
>says "alsjeblieft/altublieft": "please" for "here you are".
>Funny enough, I found the very same use in Slovak! "Prosím"
>means "please", "you're welcome", and "here you are". I wonder what other
>languages have the same use...
German, for example.
German "bitte" can be used in each of the situations you named.