Comrades,

I was flipping around on Amazon the other day and saw this book and am thinking about buying it.  The book reminded me of a conversation I had with my old neighbor about what I will call “near-synonyms”: words that have the same basic meaning but vary in degree or nuance. I noticed that Japanese people (at least those with which I’d interacted to any extent) tended to use a very limited set of adjectives. Almost everything was 「おもしろい！」. I think many people learning Japanese tend to get this impression, that the Japanese language (at least as it is used today) is not very expressive.

I’ll be the first to admit that, in English (especially American English), people have a tendency to go to the opposite extreme; bordering (and often plunging into) hyperbole. How “awesome” can a sandwich really be? But I’ve always felt stilted when using Japanese due to the lack of ability to differentiate between things that are big, huge, monstrous and  gargantuan.

I’m curious about your experiences with this type of thing.