Sometimes when I say danke (thanks or thank you) some of my friends will say (and the spelling is wrong but it's as close as I can get) they will say danata or maybe it's dinata.
I assumed they meant thanks but a Google search doesn’t give me that kind of result. What does dinata mean and what language is it from?
Dunno how native speakers would do it, but usually I answer "bitte" for "danke", "bitte schön" for "danke schön".
Fun fact: saying "bitte" near my cat prompts her to rub her face on your leg. All the time. I speak in German with her, and when she obeys my commands I tell her "bitte" and pet her, so now she associated the word with being petted.
Pronunciation-wise it's typically different, although in a weird way - both languages allow some variation depending on the speaker's variety, but they don't coincide. For example in Portuguese you could get [dɨˑ'näðɐ̥ˑ], [de'nädɐ], [dʒi'nadɐ̥ˑ], depending on where the speaker is from, but AFAIK you won't find Spanish-like [ð] without a completely "un-Spanish-like" vowel reduction. In the meantime I kind of expect some Caribbean Spanish speakers to render the expression as [de'nää] de na'a.
It feels paranoia inducing, because why are you switching languages while we're talking? And who are you trying to hide our conversation from? The feds? 😂😂
E:I feel like y'all may get be taking this comment a bit too seriously. Issa joke.
Where I live people have mixed langauge conversations fairly regularly by mixing their native language with whatever they're trying to learn - usually German or English, so that reaction is probably automatic.
When I was young (pre-internet) this reply always confused me, too. Unlike most of my peers, I didn't take any language classes until college. Glad I'm not the only one who needed a little help!