「行けたら行く」来るの？来ないの？[どっちシリーズその25]

Chihiro · December 12, 2024, 9:48am

こんにちは！今週もやって参りました、どっちシリーズのお時間です。今日は、いつもと毛色を変えて、日本の東側にある関東と日本の西側にある関西の感覚の違いに関するお話をしてみたいと思います。関東と関西といっても、当然その中にさらに地域差はあるのですが、ここでは大きくその二つに分けて考えてみましょう。

関東と関西って？

現在、関東は東京を中心とした、茨城、千葉、栃木、群馬、埼玉、神奈川を含む地域を指します。一方、関西は大阪や京都を中心とした、兵庫、滋賀、奈良、和歌山を含む地域を指します。

…というのが辞書の定義ですが、関東や関西はもともとそれが指す範囲がはっきりしない言葉です。
関東は、７世紀に当時都があった奈良を防衛するため、現在の三重、滋賀、福井に置かれた関所よりも東にある地域を指す言葉として生まれました。一方、関西は、９世紀ごろに滋賀県に新設された関所よりも西を指す言葉として使われるようになったと言われています。

そのため、現在でも関東や関西と聞いて、どの地域を思い浮かべるかは人によって違うかもしれません。例えば、私のような関東育ちからすると、大阪から山口までの地域は全て漠然と関西のようなイメージがあります。

「行けたら行く」：東西の違い

そんな関東と関西ですが、方言は別として、言葉の使い方にも結構違いがあります。ここでは、日本の大手新聞社が過去に調査してわかった有名な例を挙げてみましょう。

何かに誘った相手に「行けたら行く」と返事をされたら：

それが関東人の場合、「（調整して）ぜひ行きたいです」というどちらかと言うと前向きな返答であることが多い。
それが関西人の場合、「行きたくないけどはっきりと断ると角が立つからやんわりと断っておくか」、つまり「行かない」という意味。

友人にも確認してみた

とはいえ、関東で育った私が誰かから「行けたら行く」言われたときは「あ、来ないんだな」と思いますもしかしたら最近は関東人の感覚も変わってきているかも？と思い、東西の友人にも聞いてみました。

関西人の友人が言うには、「行けたら行く」というとき、行く気は30％程度。行きたくないし、別に行く気もないけど、当日やることがなくてかつ気が向いたら行く、くらい。

関東人の友人は、「行けたら行く」は相手に「どっちだよ！」と思わせてしまうからそもそも使わない、「その日は◯◯の予定なんだけどまだ変わる可能性があるんだ。行けたら行くね！」のように条件付きでなら使う、というような回答でした。

…やはり、関西人から「行けたら行く」と言われたらまあ来ないと思って良さそうで、関東人の「行けたら行く」は本当に行く気がある（けど行けない可能性がある）ことが多いと思って良さそうです。

もちろん個人差はありますし、その時々の状況によっても解釈は変わるわけですが、特に楽しいイベントがたくさんあるこのクリスマス・年末の時期に日本の友人と付き合う上での参考にしてもらえたら幸いです。では！千絢

English

Hello! It’s time for this week’s post of the ‘Which one?!’ series. Today, I’d like to change things up a bit and talk about the differences in perception between Kanto, located in the east of Japan, and Kansai, located in the west. Even within Kanto and Kansai, there are regional differences, but here we’ll roughly divide them into just these two for simplicity.

What are Kanto and Kansai?

Currently, Kanto refers to the region centered around Tokyo, including Ibaraki, Chiba, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, and Kanagawa. On the other hand, Kansai refers to the region centered around Osaka and Kyoto, including Hyogo, Shiga, Nara, and Wakayama.

…This above is the dictionary definition, but the terms Kanto and Kansai originally have ambiguous boundaries. In the 7th century, the term Kanto was born to describe the regions east of the checkpoints (called 関所 - sekisyo) established in Mie, Shiga, and Fukui to defend Nara, which was the capital at that time. Kansai is said to have come into use to describe areas west of the checkpoint newly established in Shiga around the 9th century.

Therefore, even today, which region comes to mind when one hears the words Kanto or Kansai may differ from person to person. For example, as someone who grew up in the Kanto region, I have a vague image of all the areas from Osaka to Yamaguchi as being part of Kansai.

‘I’ll go if I can’: Differences between East and West

In the Kanto and Kansai regions, there seems to be notable differences in the way words or expressions are used, aside from dialects. Here, let’s look at a famous example that a major Japanese newspaper investigated in the past.

When you invite your friend to an event and receive a response, ‘I’ll go if I can’:

When people from Kanto say, ‘I will go if I can’, it often means ‘I really want to go (if I can manage it)’, which is relatively positive.
When people from Kansai say ‘I’ll go if I can’, it means ‘I don’t want to go, but saying no directly might be rude, so I’ll decline gently’, in other words, ‘I won’t go’.

Confirmed by My Friends

However, when I hear someone say 'I’ll go if I can’, I usually think, ‘Oh, they’re not coming’. I wondered if the perceptions of people from Kanto have changed recently, so I asked some friends from both the east and west.

According to my Kansai friends, when they say ‘I’ll go if I can’, there’s about a 30% chance they’ll actually go. They don’t really want to go, and they’re not particularly inclined, but if they have nothing else to do that day and feel like it, they might go.

My friends from Kanto say they avoid using ‘I’ll go if I can’ because it leaves the other person thinking, ‘So, which is it?’ Instead, they might use it with conditions, like ‘I have plans that day, but they’re not confirmed yet. So, I’ll go if I can!’

After all, it’s safe to assume that people from Kansai probably don’t want to go and won’t show up, whereas people from Kanto are generally willing to attend (but there’s a possibility that they cannot go).

Of course, there are individual differences, and interpretations can change depending on the context, but I hope this helps when socializing with Japanese friends, especially during this Christmas and year-end season filled with many fun events! From Chihiro

過去の投稿/Previous posts

CursedKitsune · December 12, 2024, 10:03am

I live in Kansai and had no idea this could be interpreted as anything other than a straight “no”, assuming there isn’t some greater context. In (British) English we use pretty similar phrases to turn down invitations, like “If I can make it I’ll be sure to pop by” and other phrases of that ilk. I would guess other dialects of English also have their own versions of this.

I’ve heard this example brought up before as something foreigners misunderstand when learning Japanese due to Japanese being “indirect” but I think perhaps it is just people taking everything overly literally when they’re still at the stage of parsing out every single word. For example, in my own English I use plenty of indirect forms of communication to be polite but they can be misunderstood by non-natives or even by natives who aren’t English. This actually leads me to use fairly direct English with some Japanese people (who are practicing English) as they wouldn’t understand me if I spoke naturally. I think factors like this may add to the common impression that “foreigners” are more direct than Japanese people. I’ve also had similar experiences with American friends where I have to restrain myself from saying things I like are “alright” when they’d probably say “great” or something in the same context.

Another great example, which perhaps you could touch on in this series at some point in the future, is indirect cues for asking people to be quiet or leave, etc. In the UK we may use phrases like “Well, I must be getting on” or “Oh! Is that the time already?” or other indirect comments when we want to tell someone to go away. Infamously in Kyoto they will ask if you want tea when they want you to leave. In fact, I’ve even heard that people from other regions of Japan find some of the Kyotoites’ more indirect behaviour to be bordering on rude due to being too opaque. What do you think, Chihiro? Since I live on the Osaka side of Kansai maybe I only hear badmouthing about Kyoto so I wonder where the truth lies. I’d be curious what other small bits of indirect communication differ around the country as well.

Chihiro · December 16, 2024, 11:07am

Many Japanese people think that foreigners are more direct and straightforward, as you mentioned. However, I hadn’t imagined it could be because people like you try to speak more directly to convey what you mean That’s very interesting!

For many Japanese, ‘an English-speaking foreign country’ still primarily refers to the US. Though American movies and dramas, we might feel that especially American positive expressions come across as very ‘direct’, since Japanese people don’t easily praise others in that positive tone.
British English is often perceived as quite ‘indirect’, and there are many internet memes about it, even in the Japanese online world like this x.com. (Is this true?)

Hmmm, I don’t think the indirectness of people from Kyoto is rude. However, I’m sure I don’t fully understand what they really mean, so I would appreciate it if people could be a bit more straightforward

By the way, this series will be concluding this week. I’m planning to start a new series about dialects next year so I hope I can pick up the similar topic! Thank you for reading and leaving comments!

SoreWaMaichiru · December 16, 2024, 12:08pm

Im british and I don’t think we are indirect at all like that X post lol
In fact, I’d say we are as direct as the americans
There’s really only a few posh parts of england who talk like that

EbonyMidget · December 16, 2024, 6:59pm

These days I’d say the habit of speaking like that is definitely something that’s more present amongst middle class office jobs types. My favourite historical example of it:
"His men were outnumbered eight to one, stranded on every side by human waves of Chinese Communist infantry attackers at the height of the Korean war.

But when the British brigadier reported the position to his American superior in the United Nations joint command, he did so with classic and -as it turned out - lethal British understatement.

“Things are a bit sticky, sir,” Brig Tom Brodie of the Gloucestershire Regiment told General Robert H Soule, intending to convey that they were in extreme difficulty.

But Gen Soule understood this to mean “We’re having a bit of rough and tumble but we’re holding the line”. Oh good, the general decided, no need to reinforce or withdraw them, not yet anyway.
The upshot was one of the most famous, heroic and - according to a BBC2 documentary on April 20 - unnecessary last stands in military history: the ordeal of 600 men of the “Glorious Gloucesters” at the Imjin river almost exactly 50 years ago.

With no extra support promised, the colonel in charge of the Gloucesters fell back to a hill overlooking the river, where they made their stand. For four days, mostly without sleep, they held off 30,000 Chinese troops trying to surge across the river, killing 10,000 of them with Bren gun fire.

When they tried to withdraw, they were too late. More than 500 of them were captured and spent years in Chinese camps. Fifty-nine were killed or missing. Only 39 escaped. Two soldiers were awarded Victoria crosses for bravery."

nminer · December 17, 2024, 1:13am

As a Canadian, I can confirm that we use similar indirect phrasing to people in the UK. Or, the first time I worked with Americans I was quite shocked by how directly things were usually phrased.

Especially on the west coast, there is a bit of a stereotype of people being a bit flaky/unwilling to make plans, so unless someone gives you a definitive “yes/sure”, I would interpret “maybe” or “I’ll come if I can” as it being very unlikely they’d show up.

The one outlier is “probably”. If someone tells me they’re probably going to something I would assume they’re likely going to something, (~80%), unless something happens on the day of that prevents them.

louish02 · December 17, 2024, 1:53am

When learning Japanese I have learned about high and low context cultures. Japanese is a very high context culture, whereas American English is very low context. I have heard British English is somewhere inbetween. The examples in that X post are definitely posh sounding, but I would say with some modification I would still say some of those things “e.g with respect”.
And I am not posh at all, I get told I sound common (im from essex), but I often confuse non native english speakers or even americans when speaking, I was told I even often just omit the whole last part of a sentence, I think because I assume others will know what I am going to say, so for people not used to that in English they get so confused, I literally now have to make such a big effort with finishing sentences properly in English. I would say I am probably the opposite of a direct person lol.

CursedKitsune · December 17, 2024, 8:21am

If you don’t mind me asking how old are you and what do you do for a living? (You don’t need to say, naturally, just curious) As @EbonyMidget says perhaps it is more of a white collar thing. Regardless, in my experience British definitely are more indirect than Americans regardless of class. Consider how British people approach romance. There are also larger taboos like death. I also think British people are far less likely to give praise or go on about how much they like something. Also there is the fact that British people use sarcasm very heavily and quite often in a very dry way that is not immediately apparent even to Americans. Even consider the phrases “Could I have XYZ?” vs the more American phrases “I’ll have the XYZ” or “I’ll go for the XYZ” when ordering food. Obviously with you’re best mates or whatever you won’t be as indirect but that’s true in Japanese as well.

The tweet @Chihiro posted is accurate in my experience - obviously you don’t need to use these kind of phrases all the time though. I actually sometimes help European L2 friends interpret work emails which use this kind of indirect communication.

I’ve read about this a few times and I personally can’t see how this is worked out. All language and culture is contextual. For example, there is the idea in Japanese of “reading the air” which partly comes down to social skills and partly comes down to social norms. But I’ve had many experiences with English speaking friends or colleagues in Japan where they can’t read the “English air” even though they can read the “Japanese air”. These days even when speaking English it is more like I’m speaking a Japanese-friendly version of English as the norms are so different. I’d actually say this is one of the hardest parts of more advanced Japanese studies as you are confronted quite harshly by questions about culture and identity. Do you choose to follow the Japanese norms? Your native ones? Something different?

I think overall this is a very complicated topic so keep in mind this is all just my opinion based on my experience. Quite hard to speak definitively about this stuff.

「行けたら行く」来るの？来ないの？[どっちシリーズ その25]

「行けたら行く」来るの？来ないの？[どっちシリーズその25]