The teaching of politeness formulas and their spontaneous use by young children were investigated. The use of such formulas as greetings and thanks was studied in terms of the cultural features that may interact with the learning of such formulas and the analyses children make concerning the situations in which they are used. Conversations were taped at 3-week intervals over the course of 14 months at the homes of three Mexican families living in California. At the start of taping, the children were 20 to 26 months old. Each taping session attempted to capture 4 hours of everyday interactions. It was observed that the parents prompted the use of politeness formulas. All three of the children had begun using formulas spontaneously by the first taping session. The adults placed a great deal of emphasis on the acquisition of these formulas and rarely missed an opportunity to model their use. Although only Spanish was spoken in the home, politeness formulas were modeled in both English and Spanish. The errors that the children made in the use of politeness formulas indicated that they were trying to determine the underlying structure of such forms. (RW)