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

[leora.livejournal.com]

A lot of English speakers answer negative questions with yes. This is why I feel negative questions are best avoided and when answering them, it is best to clarify and not just give a yes or no answer. You can't trust a yes or a no, because I see both regularly used to mean either toward negative questions.

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

Hai is yes. There are two ways one could respond to the question "can't you carry it." One would be "Hai, so desu(-yo)" which would "yes, that's correct." (Literally, "yes, it is." Adding -yo makes it more effeminate and is likely the way a woman would phrase it while a man would not.) The other would be "Iie, hakobanai imasen"* which would be "no, I cannot carry it" or "Iie, takusan omoi desu" meaning "no, it's very heavy/cumbersome."

Japanese, however, tends to not phrase sentences negatively when possible. So it'd be more correct to ask "can you carry it?" rather than "can't you carry it?"

Basically, if you ask a question in a negative, it's perfectly reasonable for the responder to answer affirmatively if they are simply informing you that you are correct. If they want to give a more involved answer, it must also be stated in the negative.

So, Amy is not entirely incorrect to give you an affirmative answer to a negative question. She's just not giving you the rest of it... which conversationally is fine. Generally, to "superiors", you'd complete the sentence though. :P


*My conjugation may not be quite correct here, since this is third year/quarter material, which I'm in right now, but the sentiment of the statement in relation to my answer would be correct. (negative, involved answer to negative question)

[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".

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

This is probably common among toddlers, but Maggie sometimes says "no" when she means "yes," as in:
Me: Let's have burritos for lunch
Maggie: No
Me: Are you sure?
Maggie: No (meaning "yes.")