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In "Japanese for Busy People I" page 2 (kana or romaji edition) it says that
いいえ is 'virtually the same as "no"'.

It sounds like there are some differences, but they want to omit mentioning
them for the time being. What differences are there?
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2012-03-31T08:45:29.967
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2012-04-01T04:51:35.847
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words translation meaning
What's the difference between いいえ and English's "no"?
They might be refering to the fact that いいえ can also be used to essentially
say "that's ok" / "no problem" / "don't mention it" when someone appologizes
to you or thanks you for something.

Or that there's other ways to say "no" and that you shouldn't take いいえ as the
only correct way to say it in all circumstances.
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2012-03-31T08:50:35.593
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With English `no`:

> A: Aren't you hungry?  
>  B: Yes, I am hungry./No, I am not hungry.

But in Japanese, `いいえ` express whether you agree or not with what was said:

> A: お腹が空いていませんか。  
>  B: いいえ、空いています。/はい、空いていません。
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2012-03-31T09:24:37.093
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As a matter of etiquette it's perhaps also worth mentioning that 「いいえ」is not
appropriate in all situations where "no" might be appropriate in English and
many other languages. It's important to keep this in mind in real life
conversation.

For example, when turning down an invitation, 「いいえ」 would often be considered
rude, where "no thanks" may be fine in English.
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2012-04-01T20:17:28.457
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The key to whether to reply with はい or いいえ is not whether the _form_ of the
question is positive or negative, but whether the question is asked in a way
which expects a positive or a negative answer:

> 一緒に行きませんか？(expects a positive answer)  
>  はい、是非一緒に行きましょう。
>
> 一緒に行かないんですか？(expects a negative answer)  
>  はい、残念ながら行けません。

I guess this response could be regarded as cyclic, since the obvious next
question would be when a question expects a positive or a negative answer.
Usually positive forms expect positive answers and negative forms expect
negative answers. The tricky ones are the simple negative-form+か (without んです
or のです), which are often used for invitations, or to ask for agreement. An
example of an invitation is given above. Below is an example of asking for
agreement.

> これ、おかしくありませんか？  
>  はい、そうですね。おかしいですね。

Returning to いいえ, I would say that in practise, it's mostly used in the sense
which gibbon describes. Using it as "No" sounds pretty strong. More often, the
main verb/adjective is repeated in positive/negative as needed.
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2012-04-02T01:52:47.137
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