I want to preface this post by saying I am most likely wrong and have misunderstood Japanese culture and language. The reason I am writing this for you though is so that you don’t make the same mistake I have. With that out of the way, lesson start!
The word “hai” means “yes” in English, right? Well, only sometimes. Depending on how it is said and how it is used it can also mean:
- “Uh, huh.”
- “Uhhhhh…”
- “Yeah, yeah, yeah, what is it?”
- and by far the most confusing: “I hear what you are saying.”
It does not always mean “yes”. In the “I hear what you are saying” case it doesn’t mean anything close to yes, just a confirmation that the person has understood your question, statement, or request. If you ask someone to do something and they say “hai” they may do nothing at all.
How can you tell the difference? I don’t know. Sometimes it is in the intonation of how the word is said and other times it can be in body language or tone. One case I do know is that if “Hai” is said twice quickly in succession it implies “yeah, what is it, I’m busy.”
On to the verb “ganbaru”. The translation usually used is “to try ones best”. In English, when I think of the times I’ve heard “I’ll try my best” said it can go two ways. I’ve seen that statement said literally, as in the person will really try their best, and in a polite way where “I’ll try my best” is said but the person has no intention of doing anything.
In Japanese though, from what I can tell, “ganbaru” means “I will literally do my best”. So don’t use it unless you are certain you will stick it out or try your best on a task.
When in doubt, use “hai”. Claim ignorance if anything backfires. ;-)
This is related to a topic I’ve thought a fair amount about. A lot of the people I know rely heavily on sarcasm for their humor or simple everyday interactions. I’ve been curious about sarcasm and intonation in foreign languages.
Can someone say “Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.” in Japanese and really mean, “I’ll do it when I damn well please.” How have you found (or have you found) sarcasm handled in Japanese? Are the phonetics the same? Is it all in the facial expression? Are there subtle intonations in the language that help?
It could be related to my lack of native language ability but in my experience when I try to use sarcasm it falls flat. I also don’t know many people who use sarcasm – or at least if they do I don’t understand it.
On TV I see a lot more slapstick comedy. Also lots of typical situations that are setup as a backdrop but the gag is that something is very out of place within a common place situation. Like a big fat adult man wearing a schoolgirl uniform in a class of normal highschool students conducting class.
A good japanese schoolgirl in uniform must be able to show results in different categories not only some of web results,
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