How straight forwardness is unlikely can be seen when you say Love in Japanese

I’ve learn an important lesson yesterday on how the Japanese people were taught not to be straight forward when speak to another person.

For example, when they are expressing likeness or love to someone, usually they would say something like this

“Ore, kimi no koto o, Suki da wa” or “Atashi, (person name) no koto wa suki desu“, which literally can be translated as “I like the thing about you”

This kind of expression is more a diverted version of “Watashi wa anata ni suki desu” in japanese, or “I Like you” or “I Love you” in english, or “Aku suka padamu” or “Gw suka sama elo” in Indonesia/Slang Indonesian. Although some person would also say something similar in english like “I like everything about you” in real life.

The matter with me is that, when somebody say like that (with the word “koto“/”thing“) to me, I would automatically reply the statement with “Nani koto?”/”what thing?” because its an ambiguity for me. What thing(s) inside of me that this person like…..

Nevertheless, there are another beautiful expression or some would say –>phrase that Japanese language have, which I just learn. I do not know the detail but my friend said It was the expression that is usually use in some novel or literature and seldom used in real life (But some people might have exercised it).

For example, related to the Love/Like thing : “Tsuki ga kirey desune“, which literally means “The moon looks beautiful” but that sentence is intentionally should mean “You are beautiful just like the moon and therefore I like you“. This can be the expression to compare the person that they like to the moon, which is beautiful. Just like borrowing another object characteristic that you like and compare its likeness similarity to the subject who you speak to.

CMIIW. This is just an example of how they are taught not to be straight forward. People can find another example of this in many literature or daily life.

Bahasa Indonesia or even English have also these kind of sentence, but I think we like to be more straight forward to say something about love or likeness. Personally I prefer to use more straight forward sentence / to the point in order not to let ambiguity comes up, or just in order to express exactly what i feel about something.

For example, In Bahasa Indonesia I would say “kepala batu” in exhange of “keras kepala” to a stubborn friend, comparing the hardness and inflexible of their thought, not because their head is as hard as a stone/rock.

Its just culture.

Peace

PS:  Dont ever use the sentence “Ii tenki desune” /”The weather is good”/”Cuacanya cerah ya” to express your love. It would mean nothing to the subject. Hehe 🙂