Hi again, and many thanks for your additional comments...!

nantonaku <no_spam_please> wrote:
> What I was trying to say is
> that, all things remaining equal, one would probably have more license to
> say what one meant about a given sensitive topic in English than in
> Japanese.

Agreed...

> your story has at its core one of the points I was trying to make (I now
> realize I should have said "the less direct, the better" rather than "the
> less said te better").

Gotcha...

> In your story, although the introduction was on the
> premise of German practise, the fact that she was cross means the one of the
> intentions was to meet a potential mate. And, it took a comment from your
> friend before you actaully found this out, and found what had gone wrong.
> That is about as indirect as one can get, I think.

But no harm done, I think, insofar nobody has been embarrassed in front
of the other.

> [...] Using
> examples from real life (couples you know, famous couples,etc.) to paint
> certain scenarios and then getting her opinion on how she would react if
> she were in those scenarios is one approach.

OK, now I see a hint where I might look for study material.

> Knowing what she wants and letting her know you want the same (if you
> do) basically puts you two hypothetically together in the scenario.
> However, I don't think any of this is related to any particular phrases
> in Japanese that you could/should use to do this.

Yes, "particular phrases" is perhaps not a good choice - an idea like
"descriptions of particular situations" is better. I am talking about
books, mostly, since I've learned much of what I needed to learn in life
from literature that people recommended who knew what I was looking for
(this was in relation to studying German, Russian, and English).

> I suspect that I have not provided much in terms of what you were looking
> for in an answer, but I am not sure what it if you really want to say in
> Japanese.

Let mw quote myself here, from a previous post: "Specifically, what I
want to know is how/ from whom/ from what books, etc., I might best
learn polite, non-invasive (diplomatic, non-embarrassing,
non-harrassing) expressions in Japanese that other people use to
ascertain, among othe things, whether someone has specific plans and
ideas about their own future in regards to family, career, children,
etc., whether someone is in a relationship, whether someone is looking
for a relationship (not just to "make out"), what someone expects from a
relationship and what they find intolerable, whether someone would
consider someone else as a possible partner, what someone's attitudes,
preferences, and wishes are in relation to physical affection and sex,
and so on."

> At the risk of sounding dumber that I already do, can you give an
> example of what you would like say, in English, so that it is a bit clearer?

Not to worry, the only one who sounds dumb here is me. :-)

Yes, here is an example that is rather convenient since I recently came
across something in real Japanese that deals with the same subject.
English: "since we don't know each other's previous sexual partners, we
better get ourselves check to confirm that we are not carrying any
infectious diseases". Just the other day I came across a poster that
read, "kareshi no moto kano no moto kare wo shitteru?" Would I have come
up with anything like that? No way... but now I have an idea in which
direction I could go with Japanese.

Anyway, thanks again for your consideration!

(By the way, nothing to worry about - my posting about this topic is not
an indication of a life-stopping emergency. ;-) :-) You just see what I
write in the newsgroup, while I have been having discussions about this
topic in several other forums, as well. And the best thing is that I
have just arranged for Japanese tutoring with two native speakers, one
female, one male, who are both also fluent in German and English - a
rather rare find in Okinawa.)

Al