What Do You Think?
“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” – Oscar Wilde
I would say that thinking, in general, is pretty important. What do you think?
Did you know that in most situations, the more ambiguous you are with the things you say, the more polite you tend to become? I’m not going to go into too much detail right now, but that basically that means that if you’re less direct, you’re more polite (and the opposite is true too – the more direct you are the less polite you seem to be). It’s really quite a difference between a lot of Western cultures and the Japanese culture, where in Western cultures you’re often encouraged to be direct with your thoughts and feelings.
But, still, I think that “thinking” something for your self is pretty great. It means you’re moving forward and living your life. It’s time for you to learn how to think something in Japanese.
We’ll use what you learned in the と chapters and apply it to this one. I’d say that I think it builds on the last chapter except that I know it does. Let’s get started.