How to Read “Listen to a matchmaker’s words at half value”
Nakōdo-guchi wa hanbun ni kike
Meaning of “Listen to a matchmaker’s words at half value”
This proverb teaches that intermediaries and introducers tend to exaggerate. You shouldn’t take their words at face value. Instead, you should discount them by about half.
Intermediaries want to connect both parties successfully. They naturally emphasize the good points and downplay the bad ones. This isn’t lying. It happens naturally because they want things to work out.
This proverb applies to many situations. Job introductions, business negotiations, and property recommendations all involve third-party information. The saying doesn’t tell you to distrust intermediaries.
Rather, it reminds you that their position creates natural bias. You need to verify information and make your own judgments. This wisdom still applies today in recruitment agencies and real estate services.
The proverb teaches the importance of maintaining objectivity. Don’t swallow information whole. Keep a critical perspective when receiving information through others.
Origin and Etymology
This proverb has deep roots in marriage customs from the Edo period. Back then, marriage was an important contract between families. Matchmakers were essential as bridges between households.
The matchmaker’s role was to make the marriage arrangement succeed. They tended to emphasize positive qualities when speaking to each family. To the groom’s side, they’d say the bride was beautiful and skilled at housework.
To the bride’s side, they’d praise the groom’s distinguished family and promising future. These exaggerations didn’t come from bad intentions. They came from good intentions to create successful matches.
However, after marriage, reality often differed from what people had heard. As these experiences accumulated, people learned wisdom. They stopped believing matchmakers’ words completely and learned to discount them somewhat.
The expression “listen at half value” doesn’t mean you should doubt matchmakers. Rather, it shows understanding of human nature. People in intermediary positions naturally emphasize positive aspects.
This teaching reflects ancestral wisdom about staying calm and making good judgments. The lesson applies beyond marriage to all intermediary situations. This universal wisdom has been passed down to the present day.
Usage Examples
- The realtor said it’s a 5-minute walk from the station, but “Listen to a matchmaker’s words at half value.” Let me walk it myself to check.
- The recruitment agent praised this company highly, but “Listen to a matchmaker’s words at half value.” I should check review sites too.
Universal Wisdom
This proverb reveals a deep truth about human communication. Every message passes through the filter of the speaker’s position. Intermediaries don’t have bad intentions.
They naturally emphasize positive aspects because they genuinely want things to succeed. This comes from goodwill. It’s an essential part of human nature.
We all do this unconsciously when recommending or introducing something. Our position and expectations color our words. Salespeople want to sell products. Parents want good matches for their children.
Friends want their introductions to succeed. These feelings inevitably color our language. This is unavoidable in human interaction.
This proverb has survived hundreds of years because it recognizes a universal problem. Information asymmetry exists in all human relationships. There’s always a difference in interests and expectations between the person giving information and the person receiving it.
Our ancestors understood this structure. They created wisdom for maintaining smooth relationships despite it. “Listen at half value” represents an exquisite sense of balance.
Don’t be suspicious of others. Don’t blindly trust them either. Understand human nature and maintain appropriate distance. This wisdom is an eternal truth for navigating complex human society.
When AI Hears This
From an information theory perspective, matchmakers function as “communication channels that intentionally add noise.” In normal channels, random noise degrades information. But with matchmakers, bias has a specific direction.
Positive information gets amplified while negative information gets attenuated. This asymmetric transformation is systematic, not random.
The specific number “half” is interesting. In information theory, you need to know the channel’s characteristics to restore the original signal. If matchmakers always double the exaggeration, dividing by two brings you closer to the true value.
This is a kind of inverse transformation. Reality is more complex though. Matchmakers selectively amplify only good information. Simply halving it won’t fully restore the original.
Shannon’s entropy theory states that higher uncertainty in the information source requires more information. Information passing through a matchmaker mixes the original information with another source: the matchmaker’s intentions.
The receiver must separate these two information sources. The same happens on modern social media. Posts mix genuine feelings with exaggerations driven by the desire for approval.
Ancient people empirically estimated “half” as the optimal discount rate for biased information. This was an intuitive filtering method to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of information.
Lessons for Today
This proverb teaches modern people the importance of being active information receivers. Today, countless pieces of information fly around on the internet and social media. We constantly see the world through someone’s “intermediation.”
Review sites, influencers, and news media all act as intermediaries with their own positions and intentions.
The key isn’t to doubt others. Rather, accept the simple fact that everyone sees things from their own position because they’re human. Given this reality, don’t swallow information whole.
Develop the habit of verifying with your own eyes and examining multiple perspectives.
When you hear company presentations during job hunting, read product reviews, or receive introductions from friends, remember “Listen to a matchmaker’s words at half value.” This spirit helps you make calm and wise judgments.
This doesn’t mean distrusting people. It means taking responsibility for your own life choices. In this age of information overload, this ancient yet fresh wisdom becomes a shield protecting your life.
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