Merci de / pour = Thank you for

Merci de/pour votre question, Max!

This is a tricky one to explain. You would never say "merci du cadeau" but "merci pour le cadeau".

To simplify things and according to the Académie française :

Use Merci de 

1. When it is followed by a verb in the infinitive ( present or past)

Merci de m'avoir invité/e! = Thanks for inviting me! 

Merci de venir à 16 heures pile. = Please come at 4 pm on the dot.

2. With  abstract nouns 

Merci de votre attention! = Thank you for listening!

Merci de votre aide! = Thank you for your help!

Merci de votre obligeance! = Thank you for obliging me!

Use Merci pour with concrete nouns 

Merci pour les chocolats!

Merci pour le cadeau! 

Merci pour les fleurs!

This is the same if you use the verb remercier (to say thank you)

Hope this helps!

Cutting to the chase, use "merci pour" only where there is a concrete item for which you are thanking someone? Very helpful. 

Ok, however, I see the following in the lesson:

Merci pour votre compréhension.
Thank you for your understanding.

"Votre compréhension" is an abstact rather than concrete noun. Your advice seems to clearly contradict the lesson I have just pasted in. I have no dog in this fight. Either sounds fine to this non-native speaker and there is certainly no loss in meaning. I would be pleased to hear other opinions. I'll try some prescriptivist googling of MERCI DE & MERCI POUR and see what comes up. French is a moving target!

Reading the lesson further I find "- either de or pour is colloquial with abstract nouns (votre compréhension, patience, gentillesse...), with merci de being a bit more elegant.

- merci pour is the one you use with actual things (le cadeau, la carte...)

That sounds copasetic. While you have contradicted the lesson, I am in thrall to your rule: It just sounds better to this non-native ear.

In any even, the lesson rule might be restated as follows:

Use pour after merci where the thing you are giving thanks for is a concrete object. In all other cases, prefer de for elegance and pour as you wish.

God, I love this language!

Hi Tom, I guess what that means is that either de or pour are used in spoken French with abstract nouns. The use of pour being more colloquial and de being more elegant/formal.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Of course I get that.

I'm just pointing out the imprecision of the statement. Colloquial use does not equate with the spoken language but is rather a Register within the spoken language.

As far as I am aware a word or phrase cannot possess the duality of being both colloquial and formal.French speech with pour being colloquial and de being formal.

Perhaps I'm just being obtuse, but  as aspiring linguists we should strive for precision in language.

It's hard to believe either of these are "colloquial". I wonder if it should be "idiomatic"?

The English is a bit imprecise. I interpreted as "colloquial" meaning "used in spoken French", irrespective of register.

-- Chris.

Hi David,

You could say:

"Merci de venir à l'heure les gars! = "Please come on time guys!"

That is not quite the same meaning. It has turned a thankyou into a please that even implies doubt as to whether the guys will be on time without a reminder.

I suppose that this would be nearest to the meaning I wanted: "Merci d'avoir accepté de venir, les gars" but all of this assumes that the straightfoward "Merci de venir les gars" is not correct usage. Is that so?

When thanking in advance, one says MERCI D'AVANCE  at some point. NSP? Je te remercie d'avance d'avoir fait quoi qu'il en soit....

Bonjour Brittany !

Yes indeed, however note that negation after a preposition will come as follows:

Thanks to you, I've now added this case to the lesson :)

À bientôt !

Très bien. Merci!