Japanese people are always seeking agreement or consensus. They avoid any kind of confrontation, regardless of how minor.
This can be easily understood by noting the frequency with which the aizuchi “ne” is used. Ne is used for seeking agreement in the other speaker, when expressing agreement yourself, or when looking for confirmation in the other speaker. It weakens the utterance overall, making it softer.
In English, ne would translate roughly to “isn’t it?”, “right?” or “you know?”; however, the usage much higher than we would use in these English expressions. A conversation between two Japanese people is an endless repetition of ne peppering the end of every statement, especially in the case of more mild-mannered people, or those desperate to please.
In the same way, direct affirmatives are avoided in place of more diplomatic, weaker speech, like double negatives and maybe/might (kamoshirenai, dehanaika, -janai etc.). The Japanese language is, in a way, a collection of longwinded expressions that actually hold no concrete meaning. You have to dig deeper and read between the lines to find out what they’re actually trying to say.
Instead of “let’s do this” or “I want to do this”, a lot of the time it will be expressed in Japanese as “don’t you think it might be a bit better if it was done like this?” Layers and layers of politeness, ambiguity and softeners are piled onto the speaker’s intent, until the real meaning is smothered under social convention.
