# Meaning of "Ah so", please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2004, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926 "2004-04-20T00:12:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/21 "2004-04-20T12:37:02Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > True, but we’re both talking about Kansai 🙂 > > Just out of curiosity, what would you say the “ya” vs. “da” ratio in Gifu is? Oh my, I missed this one also. “Ya ne” is also used in parts of Kansai. Very generally speaking, the farther away you move from Osaka, the more likely you are to hear it. Gifu prefecture is really two very different areas grouped together: the former Mino province, a small, flat area to the south where most people live and the former Hida province a large mountainous and scarcely populated region. I’ve only been a few times in Hida so I can’t say what’s common over there. In Mino, it’s a bit all over the place. Older folks are definitely “ya” people, though somewhat a less pronounced “ya” than in Osaka. Younger folks tend to switch from Gifu-ben to either pure Kanto-ben or Kansai-ben. Many study outside the prefecture and they tend to adopt the speech manners of where they went to college. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/22 "2004-04-20T23:32:53Z")
Wow! this turned out to be much more interesting that I thought. What a complex language. Do speakers of one dialect pretend to “not get” another dialect, even though they are very similar? You sometimes see this in spanish as spoken among mexicans. Anyway, back to the subject; If I understand correctly, soo is pronounced with the long “o”, held for a beat or two. That is as I recall, and there could have been more following the so. I found it interesting that the phrase meant so closely to what it sounded like in english. I thought “hi” meant “yes”. Is it a different meaning of “yes” than “so”? ---
**Author:** ![RindaRinda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@RindaRinda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RindaRinda)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/23 "2004-04-20T23:35:13Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > Actually, there is a big difference. American and British English mostly differ by accent and relatively accidental vocabulary, e.g. lift/elevator, flat/appartment, etc. There is the same thing happening with Kansai and Kanto Japanese (naosu/katazukeru, akan/dame) but the biggest differences are at a very basic level, unlike English. The almighty copula is different, negatives are formed differently, final particles are different, and polite _keigo_ language works differently in some areas. Right, there are actually a lot of differences, but usually it’s not difficult to figure out what they mean, whether the difference is word used (akan/dame, honma/hontou), or the verb conjugations. If you already know some Japanese, it’s not too difficult to figure out that “wakaran” = “wakaranai” and “orareru” = “irrassharu.” ---
**Author:** ![Tokyo\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@Tokyo\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tokyo_Mann)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/24 "2004-04-21T00:53:04Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Do speakers of one dialect pretend to “not get” another dialect, even though they are very similar?. Not really. A lot of the manzai comedy is in kansai dialect, so people are very familiar with that. Dialet speakers will often use _Hyojungo_ Tokyo dialect when in Tokyo. I used to live in Kyushu, and most people would use _Hyojungo_ with me. However, they would use their local dialect themselves. > [@](#): > > If I understand correctly, soo is pronounced with the long “o”, held for a beat or two. That is as I recall, and there could have been more following the so. I found it interesting that the phrase meant so closely to what it sounded like in english. I thought “hi” meant “yes”. Is it a different meaning of “yes” than “so”? “hi” means “yes” but it also means “I heard that you said something,” which is very different than “yes.” ---
**Author:** ![RindaRinda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@RindaRinda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RindaRinda)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/25 "2004-04-21T01:40:27Z")
I didn’t catch this when I posted earlier. > [@mangeorge](#): > > I thought “hi” meant “yes”. Is it a different meaning of “yes” than “so”? To be picky, neither is the exact equivalent to “yes.” There is an often-used explanation for why “hai” isn’t equivalent to “yes”: the “Yes, we have no bananas” example. When asked a negative question like “You don’t like ice cream?”, in English you would say “No, I don’t”, but in Japanese you’d say “Hai, I don’t.” ---
**Author:** ![conczepts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e7dd6/32.png) [@conczepts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conczepts)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/26 "2004-04-21T02:20:59Z")
The classical example of this is an angry girlfriend: “You don’t even love me, do you?” “Iie!” (No!) which means, yes, I love you. 🙂 (Sadly this might be my last post since I am unemployed and membership starts tommorow. I will keep reading all the interesting Japanese threads though. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![conczepts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e7dd6/32.png) [@conczepts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conczepts)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/27 "2004-04-21T02:28:30Z")
(That looks like “LIE” but the word no is spelled i-i-e) ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/28 "2004-04-21T04:30:03Z")
> [@RindaRinda](#): > > Right, there are actually a lot of differences, but usually it’s not difficult to figure out what they mean, whether the difference is word used (akan/dame, honma/hontou), or the verb conjugations. If you already know some Japanese, it’s not too difficult to figure out that “wakaran” = “wakaranai” and “orareru” = “irrassharu.” In my experience it wasn’t so easy. If you have no previous knowledge of the dialect it might be hard to figure out that: _Nou ga orahenkatta’n ya mon de sa._ (Mie-ben) Is the same as: _Anata ga inakatta’n desu yo._ (Standard) My point, however, was that in Japanese _basic_ elements of grammar also change along with vocabulary, unlike English. (The only example I can think of in English is “isn’t”/“ain’t”.) > [@mangeorge](#): > > Wow! this turned out to be much more interesting that I thought. What a complex language. Do speakers of one dialect pretend to “not get” another dialect, even though they are very similar? You sometimes see this in spanish as spoken among mexicans. I’ve never seen anyone pretend they don’t understand. If you go to slightly more remote areas, you don’t need to pretend. Sometimes the locals will make an effort to speak in proper-ish Japanese, sometimes they don’t (or can’t). I’ve heard plenty of stories of Japanese people travelling to remote places in Shikoku. Kyushu, Aomori, etc. and not understanding a word of what people were saying.?Take examples like this (“Where are you going?”): Standard: _Anata, doko ikimasu ka?_ Kumamoto: _Nusha doke iki yotto?_ There’s no way a non-local could figure out what this means. (Admitedly Kumamoto dialect is one of the most extreme.) ---
**Author:** ![Tokyo\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@Tokyo\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tokyo_Mann)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/29 "2004-04-21T16:02:31Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > Sometimes the locals will make an effort to speak in proper-ish Japanese, That will get you in trouble. Tell everyone outside of Tokyo that they don’t speak “prober-ish” Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Tokyo\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@Tokyo\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tokyo_Mann)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/30 "2004-04-21T16:05:28Z")
> [@Tokyo\_Mann](#): > > That will get you in trouble. Tell everyone outside of Tokyo that they don’t speak “prober-ish” Japanese. And next time I’ll try prober-ish English. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926/31 "2004-04-22T01:28:14Z")
> [@Tokyo\_Mann](#): > > That will get you in trouble. Tell everyone outside of Tokyo that they don’t speak “prober-ish” Japanese. I didn’t mean this as a put-down. I just meant that some people have a hard time speaking proper _hyoujungo_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-ah-so-please/240926.md?page=1)