Main Piece: 月が綺麗ですね /The moon is very pretty (tonight).

The informant told me that it is too direct for Japanese people to say “I love you”. Japanese as a language is very obscure. In daily conversation, people are being extremely polite to each other. Therefore. directly saying “I love you” seems to be rude and abrupt. Instead of saying that out, they would say “the moon is very pretty tonight”. This is because there is a story about a Japanese famour writer, Soseki Natsume, translated “I love you” into 月が綺麗ですね. When people thinking about 月が綺麗ですね , they would think of “I love you”. It’s a connonative way of expressing love to someone.

Background information:

The informant is a student from China studying abroad in Japan. She heard this term and the story of Soseki Natsume before she went to Japan. In this coversation, she told me that the story might not be true. Because the story gets popular after Natsume’s death, no one know if he really translated “I love you” into something with the moon.

Context:

I collected this piece through a casual interview with my informant in social media chat box.

Thought:

This piece is well-known because of anime. Lots of Japanses anime and manga adapted this term into their story. I knew it from somewhere else before this interview as well. But still, it is a very romantic way to tell someone your love.