Monday, August 29, 2011

Susan Ervin-Tripp


For example:
"Real friends should...
Japanese: help each other".
English: be very frank".

"I will probably become a...
Japanese: housewife".
English: teacher".

"When my wishes conflict with my family..."
Japanese: it is a time of great unhappiness".
English: I do what I want".



  1. I think that this is related to cultural differences.

  2. The cultural background differs greatly. This of course is also shown in the language.

  3. They changed their response to match the language

  4. I remember seeing some study where the same sort of thing happened, but based on different people speaking different languages, as opposed to one person speaking them. There was a video of a person "accidentally" dropping an egg or something, and when asked to recall the events, the English (or Spanish? It was a while ago) speakers answered in a way that would hold the man culpable (The man broke the egg, etc), while the Japanese speakers seemingly understood it was an accident and said "The egg broke"

    Something to that effect. There was also one based on color recognition, but this is a bit long for a comment, so I'll stop it there.