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language study

  • Polite but Direct Refusal in Japanese

    Japan is a culture of indirect communication. When I first started learning Japanese, my teachers never failed to stress this. The language has countless examples of indirect communication via subtle queues that you just have to discern and somehow figure out. Japanese culture values politeness in speech, so indirect is always considered far more polite than direct, especially when it comes to something like refusal.

    For example...