Is Japanese a repetitive language?

I just have a general question. To be clear, by repetitive, I mean when having a conversation in Japanese, do the speakers often repeat things? For example: “I found this over here.” “You found something?” “Yes over here.” “Over there?” etc etc. That’s a big of simplification/exaggeration, but do you understand what I mean? I saw somebody said that in a comment under a game defending its dialogue by saying that “it was just translated more directly and that’s how Japanese is.” Ive never heard that before but Im no expert, I really want to know I know that there are some instances of “repetition” (people say full names more often than pronouns I believe) but that’s not necessarily what I was talking about.

6 comments
  1. Yeah, there is some truth to that. I hear that complaint often too when a game or such is translated too directly resulting in unnatural sounding conversations in English. This happens due to [aizuchi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aizuchi) or “echo questions” and they exist in basically all languages to some extent, but the degree to which they’re used in Japanese is more than that of English, which is why it sticks out so much when a translation is too direct and does nothing to tone it down.

  2. Well, yes and no. It really depends on the situation in my experience, in more formal settings it happens more often, I have seen it happen a lot and unconsciously do it as well in many work-related things.

    I have seen it in many Japanese games as well, so I think the localization for that game in the comment didn’t really adjust the dialogue for the culture, but just translated the original, which is a common thing.

    But in my daily life, the more people get used to me the less it happens, but that that does not account for personality.

    So overall, yes but not always.

  3. Perhaps in part because pronouns and subjects tend to disappear you have to confirm

  4. It is preferable to repeat something to show you understood instead of trying to say “yes” or “no,” because sometimes you could say “no” to a negative thing which makes it more like a “yes.”

    In the simplest cases the verb is repeated.

  5. I wouldn’t characterize the language as being repetitive unto itself. If speakers of the language employ the language in the manner you expressed, that speaks more of the way people employ the language. Bear in mind that the same speakers may simultaneously employ the language’s efficiencies (not repeating the topic, for example).

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