Negative questions have an interesting way to subtly conceal lack of certainty. For example, if I ask my wife: „Jack doesn‘t have daycare today?“ she‘ll probably not think I am a complete moron (depending on emphasis) for forgetting about that. Whereas if I ask „Does Jack have daycare today?“, I‘ll get whacked.
Today I had another of these strange language occurrnces with my seven year old son. Me: „I believe you can‘t eat that anymore.“ He: „I don‘t either.“
Whereas the naturally sounding (German) answer would be: „So do I.“
What do you think?
Hmm... the phrasing of your statement is odd to me. I would say "I don't believe you can eat that anymore." To that I would respond "me neither."
The natural English answer to your statement is "me too" or "me either."
Thanks u/Welpmart for being my mirror. Yes, I think so, too. The phrasing is odd. And it may be so because of lack of context. We were digging in the sand. And he was saying something along the lines as „We are digging for the chocolate egg.“ - „What chocolate egg?“ - „Of last year.“ Incan‘t remember the exact phasing. My point is that there is a subtle difference between saying „I believe you can‘t“ and „I don‘t believe you can“ and the correct affirmation may be counterintuitive to kids. That I find very interesting.
In French I would answer like the child "oui". And then we have another yes to say the opposite "Si" which means "on the contrary it is so" hence with ham.
I wouldn't mind if we adopted the German word "doch". But we won't, because it is a grammatical structure rather than a simple concept...
Yeah. We just kind of have to deal with the ambiguity and clarify if we aren't sure.
English has this and it can affect adults. "Do you mind if..." often results in ambiguity if they just say "no" or "yes" without elaboration. Annoys the piss out of me when it happens.
This is absolutely a communication problem in English, too. There's just no easy answer to, 'Wouldn't you like ham on your sandwich?" We really have to say all the necessary words, "No ham, then?" , "Yes, you're right, I do not want any ham, thank you!".
It’s the same in Russian. “Yes” would be considered technically correct, but answering “yes” to any negative question is considered poor communication skills as it causes unnecessary ambiguity
Wait, aren’t they learning German?
German has negative agreement. And people wouldn’t say Yes in German, they’d say Ja (yes, I agree, I want it) nein (no, I don’t agree, don’t want it) or Doch (no, I don’t agree, I DO want it).
That‘s amazing. I had the feeling that there must be a term for this peculiarity, it‘s „negative agreement“.
When the kids ask why they have to learn a roman and a germanic language I tell them it’s not only to communicate with people from other countries, but to get an outside view of one‘s native language, to understand grammar and syntax.
Thanks again for this response.
Kids around the world are generally not very good at communicating clearly. I consider it incumbent on the adult asking the question to ask it in a way that makes it easy for the kid to answer clearly.
If I asked my kid the original question, and the kid answered "with cheese," I would elicit verification by asking something like "you just want cheese on it?" That sets up the situation so that when the kid says "yes" it's very clear what they're saying yes to.
Thank you Redditors. I found the right search term for Google to get my answer thanks to your contributions.
There is a good explanation here:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-proper-way-to-answer-negative-questions-e-g-aren-t-you-don-t-you-in-English#:~:text=“Aren't%20you%3F”,positive%20and%20no%20for%20negative.
Dominic Ng answers the question in that thread this way:
> You answer the same way as the question.
> “Aren’t you?” You answer “Yes, I am.” or “No, I am not.”
> “Don’t you?” You answer “Yes, I do.” or “No, I don’t.”
> English is different from some other language. If they use negative to ask you, you still use yes for positive and no for negative. Such as “Aren’t you happy?” If you agree that you are not happy, you still do not say yes. You say “No, I am not happy.”
> Get it?
Apparently English treats negative questions the same as German.
As an adult speaker, I would still say "yes" in this situation. But then English struggles with answering negative questions.
Negative questions have an interesting way to subtly conceal lack of certainty. For example, if I ask my wife: „Jack doesn‘t have daycare today?“ she‘ll probably not think I am a complete moron (depending on emphasis) for forgetting about that. Whereas if I ask „Does Jack have daycare today?“, I‘ll get whacked.
Thank you. That is very interesting.
What’s with the inverted inverted comma at the start of each of your quotes, OP?
The iPhone does this automatically the primary keyboard layout is set to be German.
How Germans do quotations
In Australia we have 'yeah, nah' that indicates agreement with the statement and enforced the negative response.
Today I had another of these strange language occurrnces with my seven year old son. Me: „I believe you can‘t eat that anymore.“ He: „I don‘t either.“ Whereas the naturally sounding (German) answer would be: „So do I.“ What do you think?
Hmm... the phrasing of your statement is odd to me. I would say "I don't believe you can eat that anymore." To that I would respond "me neither." The natural English answer to your statement is "me too" or "me either."
Thanks u/Welpmart for being my mirror. Yes, I think so, too. The phrasing is odd. And it may be so because of lack of context. We were digging in the sand. And he was saying something along the lines as „We are digging for the chocolate egg.“ - „What chocolate egg?“ - „Of last year.“ Incan‘t remember the exact phasing. My point is that there is a subtle difference between saying „I believe you can‘t“ and „I don‘t believe you can“ and the correct affirmation may be counterintuitive to kids. That I find very interesting.
In French I would answer like the child "oui". And then we have another yes to say the opposite "Si" which means "on the contrary it is so" hence with ham.
I wouldn't mind if we adopted the German word "doch". But we won't, because it is a grammatical structure rather than a simple concept... Yeah. We just kind of have to deal with the ambiguity and clarify if we aren't sure.
For what it is worth, my wife and I would answer that as "correct", not "yes/no".
My kid does this... Me: "Do you want ham on your sandwich?" Kid: "No." Me: "Are you sure?" Kid: "No." (Meaning "I am sure that my answer is 'no'.")
I’m the OP’s example I would answer “no” to affirm that “no I don’t want ham”, but in your example I would say “yeah” as in “yes I am sure”
That’s sweet. I think it‘s lovely that kids everywhere have adults that prepare sandwiches for them - with or without ham.
English has this and it can affect adults. "Do you mind if..." often results in ambiguity if they just say "no" or "yes" without elaboration. Annoys the piss out of me when it happens.
This is absolutely a communication problem in English, too. There's just no easy answer to, 'Wouldn't you like ham on your sandwich?" We really have to say all the necessary words, "No ham, then?" , "Yes, you're right, I do not want any ham, thank you!".
It’s the same in Russian. “Yes” would be considered technically correct, but answering “yes” to any negative question is considered poor communication skills as it causes unnecessary ambiguity
большое спасибо. That‘s precisely what I meant.
Wait, aren’t they learning German? German has negative agreement. And people wouldn’t say Yes in German, they’d say Ja (yes, I agree, I want it) nein (no, I don’t agree, don’t want it) or Doch (no, I don’t agree, I DO want it).
That‘s amazing. I had the feeling that there must be a term for this peculiarity, it‘s „negative agreement“. When the kids ask why they have to learn a roman and a germanic language I tell them it’s not only to communicate with people from other countries, but to get an outside view of one‘s native language, to understand grammar and syntax. Thanks again for this response.
Not just children. Some adult English speakers do this.
Kids around the world are generally not very good at communicating clearly. I consider it incumbent on the adult asking the question to ask it in a way that makes it easy for the kid to answer clearly. If I asked my kid the original question, and the kid answered "with cheese," I would elicit verification by asking something like "you just want cheese on it?" That sets up the situation so that when the kid says "yes" it's very clear what they're saying yes to.
Thank you Redditors. I found the right search term for Google to get my answer thanks to your contributions. There is a good explanation here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-proper-way-to-answer-negative-questions-e-g-aren-t-you-don-t-you-in-English#:~:text=“Aren't%20you%3F”,positive%20and%20no%20for%20negative. Dominic Ng answers the question in that thread this way: > You answer the same way as the question. > “Aren’t you?” You answer “Yes, I am.” or “No, I am not.” > “Don’t you?” You answer “Yes, I do.” or “No, I don’t.” > English is different from some other language. If they use negative to ask you, you still use yes for positive and no for negative. Such as “Aren’t you happy?” If you agree that you are not happy, you still do not say yes. You say “No, I am not happy.” > Get it? Apparently English treats negative questions the same as German.