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by dmingoddd 3396 days ago
languages where you can convey respect by certain forms of words and its inherent link with social status or superiority are a pain to get the initial social coordination. cause you're judging and gauging consistently on how to play it especially with strangers.
1 comments

Frickin' Japanese. There are some social customs that tie into this: when two salarymen meet for the first time, the first thing they do is wordlessly exchange business cards, so that the right honorifics, registers, verb forms, and such can be used depending on who outranks whom.
And they have so many words to express degrees of gratitude and denote degrees of favours. So I was told by a fellow startup guy who speaks Japanese.