A Conversation for The Reluctant Gaijin in Japan: Bureaucracy and Thought
Affirmatives and negatives and the confusion of the languages
ITIWBS Started conversation Oct 18, 2010
In Japanese, the term 'I-eh' (the 'I' pronounced as in Spanish, as though an English long 'e') is an emphatic negative. (For that matter the term 'Ie" is used the same way as in Japanese in Mandarin, Siberian dialect and Sioux.)
The phonologically similar English 'yeah' is a mild affirmative, indicating that one may take the point for granted.
The difference may originate in points of usage illustrated as follows:
Posing a question to a shopkeeper, "Have you any bananas?",
The Japanese shopkeeper will respond, "Yes, we have no bananas." (If they haven't got any) while the English speaking shopkeeper would respond, "No, we have no bananas."
Subtleties of difference of usage like this may make for profound misunderstanding, especially when the problem may originate in an essentially unconscious usage like prefacing responses with "Yeah" or "Ie".
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Affirmatives and negatives and the confusion of the languages
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