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> ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army. Not really, if you get a "yes" in the Netherlands, Nordics, Germany or Poland it does mean, simply, yes. The conseq
by bojan 8mo ago
> ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army.
Not really, if you get a "yes" in the Netherlands, Nordics, Germany or Poland it does mean, simply, yes.
The consequence of which is that actually getting a "yes" takes a lot of work.
I don't dare speak for other countries, no experience there.
- bombolo 8mo ago[dead]
- myst 8mo agoI live in Germany. 'Ja' here means 'ich stimme zu' only when explicitly asked. That's why Germans stick 'Ja?' after every second sentence. Ja? In general, 'ja-a...' means 'I hear you', same as almost everywhere else. That has been my experience.
- nuancebydefault 8mo agoThe 'ja?' with a question mark means 'right?'. It just happens to be the same word as 'yes'. So no, not same as almost everywhere else.
- myst 8mo agoAnd why do they say ‘right?’ every time? Because without it my ‘ja’ does not mean ‘yes, sir’, but rather ‘I hear you, go on’. So, same as everywhere else.
- nuancebydefault 8mo agoThe answer to 'right?' usually is 'yeah', to indicate: yes, I agree. So 'Ja? Ja.' in German can be translated as 'Right? Yeah.' in English.