Currently attending Japanese lessons with a native Japanese sensei.
I noticed that she is nice and polite to other students but she is “less” nice and polite (or more direct?) to me.
For example, she asked other students what were their plans for the weekend and most said they were planning to watch “Barbie”. She responded with “Ahh Barbie the movie!” in Japanese.
During conversation practice, whilst we were role-playing as friends who are making plans for the weekend, I said “Let’s go watch Barbie together.” in Japanese. Then she responded with “I am not really too keen on watching Barbie” with an unhappy face. Turns out that the marketing team for Barbie thought it was a “great” idea to market Barbie and Oppenheimer together, which offended many Japanese.
And when she asked what kind of shows I watch, she will make direct comments such as “The person looks very scary…” after I showed her.
Hilariously, she would share with me that she is quite messy and never cleans up the mess in her home when talking after class. Which surprised me as I thought Japanese tend not to say such things.
Just wondering for the experts on Japanese culture here, is she showing me her honne by being “less nice/polite” and being direct?
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11 comments
maybe she is falling in love with you
Japanese-American here. Wife is Japanese-Japanese….. The two other posts are kind of poking fun at you but they’re probably not too far off from the truth. No, your teacher is probably not falling in love with you, but sometimes, for whatever reason, you just feel comfortable around certain people so you start to talk more frankly and openly.
Isn’t that a good thing tho
Japanese people tend to love self-degrading humor. So your teacher mentioning her messiness may be a part of that
This isn’t just a japanese thing, it’s just that japanese people have a name for it. ( ever had to pretend to be polite and all that at work ? Yeah )
She’s definitely opening up to you by being more real , so to say
Idk man. How would I know that.
“Japanese people tend not to say such things” is going to be a ridiculous generalisation pretty much no matter what “such things” refers to. Remember: There are millions of Japanese people out there and they are all individuals with their own unique thoughts and ways of doing things, just like everyone else. There is no way people on this sub can make judgement calls on your relationship with this person on the basis of her being Japanese.
Idk, maybe you can stop treating Japanese people as some kind of exotic animals?
lol mad about getting rejected and the effects of showing creepy photos
Sounds like a language teacher mixing it up to keep students on their toes. I think you shouldn’t take what they are saying too literally and roll with it. Learning a language is a bit like acting, and you need to change characters from time to time.
Japanese here. It just reflects her personality. Also, when Japanese speakers use English, they may be more direct due to limited vocabulary and grammar.”