There are some words in Japanese language that are quite difficult to comprehend for the foreigner people, because even when we know the meaning of the word, we don’t know the background of it.
That’s the case of the Word “mame”in Japanese, of course anyone who has some knowledge of Japanese would know that the meaning is “bean” however the word “mame” is used by the Japanese with another very different meaning, which we foreigners would never figure up, and that’s because we don’t know the very background of the word.
I’m very interesting in that kind of words and expressions, because in those words is show up the culture and behavior of Japanese people, which we know is certainly different from us.
The first time I heard the word “mame” in such terms, it attracted my interest, and almost instantly I asked about it, both of my friend that were with me that time (one of them pronounced the word) couldn’t give me a good example of how to understand the real meaning of this word.
Later I try to find out this meaning at the dictionary, but of course, it doesn’t appear more than “bean” meaning (maybe my dictionary wasn't that good, but any way), so I asked again to one of my Japanese friends, and finally after gave me series of examples that clarified my doubts. As for me the most closed translation and use of the word “mame” in English would be “meticulous person”, certainly not quite used in the English speech and it sounds "wordy" but this is the word, as for me it works better to say that someone is "cling on to something" or simple say that someone "gets into it" too much. Time living in Japan has taught that every expression or word has a matching one on the other language of course it has some difference nuance, but I think it can get by to comprehend the second real meaning of this word.
