In which Amy speaks Japanese

[pne]

IIRC, Japanese hai means not yes as in English, but "the assumptions of your question are correct".

This makes a difference when you ask a negative question; if you have problems carrying something and someone asks you, “Can’t you carry it?”, the usual answer in English is, “No[, I can’t]”, whereas Japanese would use “Hai[, you are correct: I can’t]”.

Amy, on the other hand, tends to answer such negative questions with, “Yes,” which is a bit unexpected.

Comments

[camomiletea.livejournal.com]

This is similar to Russian, as well. I was so confused what to say when people ask me a negative question like "You don't mind [smth], do you?", because I want to say "Yes", meaning "sure, I don't have a problem with that".