Since English doesn’t have codified politeness levels in grammatical structures (like Japanese does with eg verb endings, where tabe-ru is less polite than tabe-masu for the same verb meaning “eat”), we tend to make requests longer the more polite we’re being.
For example:
- Bring me that.
- Hey/Yo, bring me that.
- Can you bring me that?
- Could you bring me that?
- Would you mind bringing me that?
- When you get a chance could you bring me that?
- If if fits into your schedule I’d appreciate it if you could bring me that.
- I know you’re really busy but it would really help me out a lot if you could bring me that.
With close friends the first one is ok(ish) if your tone isn’t too commanding, but I’d normally stick to 2 through 4 (or 5). For some reason a “please” sounds overly polite whereas a “thanks” upon receiving the request doesn’t. I imagine this is different for other regions. I’m from the US northeast, but people from the south probably feel differently.
One of my favorite random Japanese language coincidences is that one meaning of “yo” is the same in English and Japanese.
Let’s go, yo!
Ikou, yo!