Forum › Yuri Manga for Studying Japanese discussion
You know, I often wondered about Souseki Natsume and his famous answer to the question of how to say "I love you" in Japanese.
There are many versions of how the episode played out, but in all of them there's a foreign student (who's learning Japanese from Souseki) who eventually faces Souseki and asks him to say "I love you" in Japanese.
Souseki then looks at the student and says: "Tsuki ga kirei desu ne" ("The moon is beautiful, right?")
I often wondered why Souseki didn't say "Aishiteru" or "Suki da yo" or any other of the many correct answers, instead of giving an obviously wrong translation. Most scholars try to explain this claiming that Souseki wanted the student to realize that the Japanese people prefer to express their romantic feelings indirectly, because doing otherwise is too embarrassing. But... I never found these explanations convincing...
But now, I think I have finally found the real reason.
Souseki was way too cool to fall for such a transparent prank. Unlike sensei here. Yup.
THIS IS ALL WIN ALL THE WAY
