[arzke]

I am not a native speaker, but I noticed that in Australia people sometimes replied to the question "Do you mind...?" with "Yes", actually meaning "No" (they don't mind).

It happened enough times so that I've asked a few people why they were replying "yes" instead of "no", to which they couldn't give me a clear explanation. This really surprised me at first, but then I understood that the words didn't matter as much as the tone of voice.

Is that something common in Australia? Or in any other country? Or was that only a non-representative sample that happened to make the same mistake?

[stephen_g]

As an Australian I’d find that strange without a following clarification, in which case the clarifying clause is doing the answering and the first bit is just sentiment. There’s also the possibility of using both yes and no, usually rendered as “Yeah nah” or “Nah yeah” - with the first generally being negative and the second being positive.

So some examples, both being “Yes I’ll do it” -

“Do you mind taking out the rubbish” “Nah, that’s fine” (No actually answers the question and then you confirm)

“Do you mind taking out the rubbish?” “Oh yeah, no problem” (Yes just acting as sentiment)

Or

“Do you mind taking out the rubbish?” “Nah yeah, all good”

Or to say you do mind, you might say “Yeah nah, sorry I’m busy”

[willis936]

As a US native I've made a habit of not using one word responses to questions that have ambiguous binary responses. "Not at all." "I don't mind." "I do mind."

[datadeft]

This is common practice in the US as well.