What phrase is acceptable to say to someone who taught you something new?

In my native language if someone taught you one thing new that you didn't know before (for example: he corrected me for a mistake and explained me a new rule to avoid it) then we tell him something that can be translated into: Tank you, I've became smart/er or "Thank you. Iv'e got smarter." Then my question what is the parallel phrase in English? (Maybe, "Thank you I('ve) learnt something new", will work?)

  • 3
    "Thank you, I learned something new today." comes to mind. – user3169 May 27 '18 at 0:49

It would be grammatical and understood if you said Thank you, you have just made me smarter. It would not be fully logical because of ambiguities in what is meant by the word smarter. You are certainly more knowledgeable than you were five minutes ago, and you may be wiser, but it is extremely dubious whether you are more intelligent. It would be clearer to say Thank you for for making me more knowledgeable or Thank you for making me wiser.

None of these, however, are highly idiomatic. In English, it is more frequent to thank someone for what he or she did. So what sounds more idiomatic to me is Thank you for teaching me something new or Thank you for preventing me from making that mistake again.


There are many ways of doing it.

With positive sentence:

Thank you, for I've become smarter. (accepting his help yet you might have done it yourself too)

Thank you, for making me smarter. (accepting without his help you wont be able to)

Thank you, I feel smarter now. (asuming the help you receive was only a small impact)

Same as above:

Thank you, for I've become wiser.

Thank you, for making me wiser.

Thank you, I feel wiser now.

With negative sentence:

Thank you, for making me less stupid. (sarcastic)

Thank you, I feel less stupid now. (sarcastic)

Other ways to imply that they showed you a new route to do things:

Thank you, for changing my perspective. (you could have found it yourself but the help is appriciated)

Thank you, for changing my way of thinking. (you were stuck this help was usefull)

Thank you, for changing my way of seeing things. (same as above "stuck")

Help was unnecessary but accepted:

Thank you, for your addition to my knowledge. (careless)

Thank you, for your addition to my library. (sarcastic)

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