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I am having trouble with thinking of usage cases for 「ありがたい」.

The usage case of
[ありがた迷惑](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2114/wheres-the-
missing-%E3%81%84-in-%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%9F%E8%BF%B7%E6%83%91-%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%9F-%E3%82%81%E3%81%84%E3%82%8F%E3%81%8F)
does not make sense to me. Even though I don't know that particular phrase, I
can use it as a template. Therefore, I would expect all of the following to
also be correct：  
ありがたい案内者  
ありがたい説明  
ありがたいお土産  
ありがたいオゴリ  
....

But none of those sound correct to me. I've only heard 「ありがたい」 used as a
substitute for 「ありがとう」 in an informal situation. However, 「ありがとう」seems a
little different because it seems to bring a complete end to a thought,
while「ありがたい」might be followed by a conjunction such as
「ありがたいけれど...」、「ありがたいでも...」

What are some examples of how to use「ありがたい」、as well as examples of how to use
it in an inflected form?
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2014-06-27T15:29:45.833
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usage
usage cases for「ありがたい」?
[French
Wikipedia](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe%3aConjugaison_en_japonais/%E6%9C%89%E9%9B%A3%E3%81%84)
lists many, though, not all forms of ありがたい.
[Weblio](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84)
also shows that **～がる** , **～げ** , **～さ** , and **～み** can follow ありがたい.  
These examples, however, are not really necessary to address your problem. Try
to think of ありがたい as the combination of あり and ～がたい. ～がたい just means
**difficult**. Hence, ありがたい means **difficult to be**. That is basically the
second meaning (ニ) on
[Weblio](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84).
If something is difficult to get, or rare, then we appreciate it more when it
actually happens.  
In my Japanese, your examples are actually quite in order, even though I'd
prefer ありがたい案内 **much appreciated information**. The expression ありがとう（ございます）is
based in this meaning, but has acquired the non-compositional meaning of
**thank you**.
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By itself, `ありがたい` can mean "thankful" or "fortunate". So in many (all?) cases
it can replace `感謝する`. Or any place where you'd use `ありがとうございます` you can make
it more informal by just switching to `ありがたい` (although be careful in doing
this!).

Here are some examples:

>   * 来てくれてありがたい → Thanks for coming. (Sounds flaky to me though)
>   * ありがたいことに私はいつも健康に恵まれている → Fortunately I have always been healthy.
>   * ありがたく招待を受ける → Accept the invitation with gratitude
>   * あなたの協力は実にありがたい → Your help will certainly be welcome.
>   * ありがたいことに朝になって雨はやんだ → Fortunately, the rain stopped in the morning.
>

If you want to sound _really_ humble when thanking someone, you can use
`〜ありがたく存じ上げます`.
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It can also be used when making a request for help. For example,
何かアドバイスをいただけたらありがたいです。which I took from weblio.
<https://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/I+would+appreciate>

This is the best use of ありがたい in regular speech, in my opinion - i.e. in the
conditional case where the English meaning is very close to "I would be
grateful if..." or "I would really appreciate it if..."

There are not many other ways to say this in quite the same way.
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