I've been wondering how the japanese think, If i want to understand the language i think i would be necessary to know how Japanese think. Anyone have any insight?

I'm pretty sure the Japanese think more or less the same way as humans do.

bit too vague

well their views on life, im positive there has to be some differences...based on where and how they live.

http://books.google.com/books?id=fdYKAAA...&q&f=false

just replace hamburgers with sushi, otherwise they think the same.

I wouldnt think it to be that simple or im over thinking

Well obviously there are cultural differences, but you will stumble upon them while studying the language or listening/reading to native material. You are trying to do it in reverse : analyzing the "japanese way of thinking" and then tackling the language. I don't think it works that way, you can't replace experience!

according to my grammar book they think in dictionary forms.

I would suspect you'll learn more about how Japanese people think by studying their language than you would learn about the Japanese language by studying how they think...

Glib answer aside, I find that cultural stuff comes as part of the language-learning journey. As you understand more of the language, you open up the ability to learn about their culture and attitudes.

The Japanese are a unique and beautiful species from the planet Nihonjin. They think only in terms of bushido, sushi and transgressive sexual fetishes.

For what it's worth, it seems like someone (nestor?) posted an article about how Japanese people are less likely to remember the "actor" in an instance than (i think it was) British people.

Something about something like Japanese people think "the jar was knocked off the table" whereas the British people will think "Jane knocked the jar off the table."

I don't know what thread this was in, or have a link to the article, but I'm sure it's somewhere. Maybe it's something to do with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or something like that.

Ah, if you're interested in pragmatics, I find Maynard's books pretty cool (thanks to the guy on this forum that recommended it! ). I ordered "Principles of Japanese discourse", but I found "Linguistic emotivity... an ideology of pathos in Japanese culture" on the d.o.n.k.e.y, it would be a pretty good start if you'd like to explore this field.

Might as well ask how do deaf people think when they go over conversations in their head. What do blind people see in their dreams. What's the thinking of an addict before and after his fix.

If it matters, on the goo website is an online poll of sorts that asks all manner of questions. That's a good way of seeing how Japanese society reacts to situations (adultery, jobs, embarrassment, abuse, tv shows, etc.)

You know, I've recently started living with Japanese people about 2 months ago and we talk every day in Japanese. Little by little I'm starting to really pick up on the differences in way of thinking.

However the only way to really do that is first learn Japanese and then have lots of conversations about life, the world and personal preferences.

mezbup Wrote:You know, I've recently started living with Japanese people about 2 months ago and we talk every day in Japanese. Little by little I'm starting to really pick up on the differences in way of thinking.

However the only way to really do that is first learn Japanese and then have lots of conversations about life, the world and personal preferences.

very true

harhol Wrote:The Japanese are a unique and beautiful species from the planet Nihonjin. They think only in terms of bushido, sushi and transgressive sexual fetishes.

やはり侍の国です。

As you may already know, Japanese places more weight on the object of a sentence, and the subject is often omitted. Misuse of a subject is common among the learners of Japanese whose 1st language is English. A Chinese Japanese psycholinguist, Usoyo Nen, hypothesized it was because English speakers were more self conscious compared to Japanese, and conducted an experiment where English speaking Japanese learners were put into a series of Zen meditation sessions in which participants were taught the technique to be in a "selfless state". After 3 weeks of one hour Zen session a day, the learners' errors in the use of subjects were reduced by 23% while the group that didn't participated in Zen and only studied in class showed 2% reduction. Now all this is an absolute lie. I've just made everything up. Sorry

I don't think there is any particular way of "thinking" you can learn which improves your Japanese skills like this. There are, of course, very idiomatic ideas. This is a case of a Japanese learning English, but there was a billboard for a casino around here saying "We'll make a winner out of you!". I just couldn't get my brains around this expression. Not that I didn't understand the meaning of it, I understood it was something like "We'll make you a winner" or "We'll make a winner using you as the base material". but why is it "out of ????" what will come OUT??? a winner? That doesn't make any freaking sense!! But after being exposed to hundreds of similar expressions, I learnt that English speakers make all kinds of different things out of variety of stuffs, and now the expression sounds just right. Today, I don't even know why it puzzled me that much back then, but it did. Japanese people definitely see things differently, but as far as the language and its proper usage is concerned, there is nothing the good old exposure can't fix, me thinks. Speaking of exposure, I started creating a lot of Anki cards with expressions I found idiomatic or simply interesting. These are things like "In fact so much fell into place that she turned quite cold", "The child has a stubborn streak", "back-to-back homers in a major league baseball game" and such. It's not I don't understand them but I thought I'd never come up with these expressions myself so I wanted to have a bit more forced exposure. I guess it's just sentence mining but I also put things that I already understand. I started this only a while back though. So not sure how effective it is. Just an idea.

With correct usage of the phrase "me thinks" for the win.

Although, my spell check is not telling me that "methinks" with no space is incorrect, so we may or mY not have an incident of illogic idiom idiocy.
Just kiddin' :p but seriously, using "me thinks" in a post about learning idiomatic phrases? Were you *trying* to be awesome?

Thanks, but no, I was trying at "get my brains around" part but I guess "get my brain around" is much more common so I missed to nail that one. It's not like you are talking only about left cerebrum. It doesn't make sense!!

I picked up methinks from you guys here. Lurking on internet forums may be the way to go then

hehe, Did you get it from me? I did a forum search and don't see anyone else using it. I always feel guilty for using 'methinks', picked it up from Shakespeare, I believe. It's 'methinks' with no space.

I swear i've seen someone used "me thinks" but was it somewhere else???

I just don't want to admit I stole it from nest0r

masaman Wrote:I swear i've seen someone used "me thinks" but was it somewhere else???

I just don't want to admit I stole it from nest0r

Ha, yeah I'm turning up misuses where people use it as 'me thinks', which looks awful I think--a bastardization of an already hackneyed term. ;p Maybe people insert a space, not knowing its history as a single unit, and end up making an ungrammatical phrase (according to our current grammar that wasn't standardized in, say, Shakespeare's time).

I still win as the person lazily and self-consciously using this hackneyed term the most though, methinks.

In order to give the OP a more concrete answer, I'll share some observations I've made.

Attentiveness:
Japanese people tend to be more careful and meticulous compared to others. I think a good example of this is teppanyaki restaurants in the U.S. compared to those in Japan. Chefs at U.S. teppanyaki restaurants attempt to dazzle you with tricks and lightning fast reflexes. On the other hand, chefs at Japanese teppanyaki restaurants avoid theatrics in favor of precise culinary techniques executed with a studied focus. This translates into a tendency to favor subtle excellence over bold exhibitions.

Indirectness:
Most people are already familiar with this. In short, Japanese people usually don't talk about things directly and they don't confront others directly. Westerners often consider this cold and dodgy, but Japanese consider it polite and mature.

Inference:
Picking up on the mood and reading in between the lines are extremely important in social situations. This means that Japanese people tend to read into your words and actions more than others. For example, some Japanese may think you're greedy or impolite if you select the biggest or best looking piece of food from a communal dish.

Selflessness:
In Japanese society (as with most Asian societies), you're expected to always put others before you. When eating, good manners dictate that one pour drinks for others and add food to their plates before oneself.

There's a plenty of other things I could mention, but I think this covered some key categories that Westerners often struggle with. There's definitely books on cultural traits which cover what I talked about and much more with greater detail. However, watch out for books that make claims about cultural traits and their effects on society and individual capabilities. It's one thing to point out cultural behavior. It's another to say that certain cultural behaviors are responsible for a slew of events that can be better explained by other means.

OK. Forget about lurking on internet forums. All the bad grammar will rub off on you. I'll read more books But Shakespeare... I already gave up on Ulysses...