We have a hard time saying 'no'.
In Japanese it's not just denying the verb by saying 'no'. It's rather denying the person because gramatically speaking we will put 'no' at the end of each sentence. That is, we should deny the whole sentence, not just the verb. And by doing so we feel like denying the whole of the sentence and the person who has said it. That's the origin of Japanese enigma of why we have a hard time saying 'no'. Well, that's my theory. :roll:

Could you please write an example? :roll:

I've heard of many places where it happens, I did not know Japan where one of them though. An example a teacher of mine did tell us in high school was to ask if any train ever stops at station. Let's assume the station is out of order. If you ask "Do any train ever stops at this station?" you will be answer "Yes" in many African countries (that was the example we were taught), so you need to avoid yes or no questions; if you ask "When will the next train stop?" you will be answer "Never". Samuraix, does this example match the average Japanese situation or is it a too heavy one? By the way, there are people who can't say no here in Spain, but it's a quite uncommon case, and the previous example do not match to most of them. Anyway, "fear" to say no is not so weird as it looks, we all have ever done something just because we avoided saying "no" to someone else that way. A typical weirdness of Spanish people is avoiding to say "I do not know".

Hi! That factor also has something to do with our mentality in which we have a hard time saying no to people. But what I wanted to mention here is that structually speaking in the Japanese language it's hard to say 'no'. To make it bit simple, let's explain the case by using some examples. See the following sentence. I don't agree with you. It's just a negative form of the verb, you see? Now look at the Japanese one. Watashi wa anatani sansei dewa arimasen. The negative form takes place at the end of the sentence and that gives you the impression of denying 'you' in stead of just denying the verb. Compare it with the English one. You can see 'with you' is placed after the verb and for that matter th afore mentioned impression doesn't happen that strongly. It's no more than a gramatical negation, however, in Japanese it gives us an impresion that you are denying the whole sentence. And that means you're kind of denying that person too. Then what to do if you want to say no to Japanese? We put the sentence such as 'I am very sorry to say but' or 'I wish I could really help you but', etc.

It is interesting. This is the kind of things that usually you don't find on books (or www). I'm afraid we have no way to check your theory, but it definitely makes sense, and you have been able to make us understand that "feeling" of denying the person. I think we'll never forget about the hardness on saying 'no' in Japanese, and those examples on avoiding it look very useful. Thanks Takeshi :)