Dialects, Accents, and Foriegners

[hyreia77]

Hey, I got one question right now, (although im sure more will arrise as I continue studying...) Most books I read talk about how its so common in the Tokyo dialect to leave out silent sounds or w/e... you know like the u in desu or the i in mata ashita? Well I wanted to know. Do some Japanese people speak without an "accent" like do they speak how we're learning it?, pronounciating it all, well.. you know what I mean. Would it be wrong to learn Japanese with a tokyo dialaect?
Sorry this is probably in the wrong section or whatever... could someone please answer my queestion thou? ^^

 

[TheKansaiKid]

The only natives that speak the way you describe

are trying to purposely talk slowly and clearly so a gaijin can understand them. I think the dialect you should try to mimic is the dialect of your teacher, pronounce things like they do, if you ever have the opportunity to go to Japan you will naturally start to immitate those around you.

One note to be careful of, when you are studying a language it is often easier to converse with someone of the opposite sex. (kill 2 birds eith one stone as they say) Male and female speech patterns differ, and if you are unaware of that you can end up sounding quite odd. Many VERY heterosexual male teachers I knew in Japan sounded extremely effeminate. It's funny to see a 6'4" burly black man sounding like a high school girl. I didn't run a search but I am sure this topic would be covered extensively in other threads.

Of the 7 years I spent in Japan 6 of those were in Kansai so my accent is very Kansai. My uncle had a Japanese exchange student come stay with him, when I went to visit I introduced myself in Japanese and the girl burst out laughing uncontrollably. I wondered if I had mad a mistake, so I asked the girl why she was laughing. She said hearing such a strong Kansai accent from a foreigner was surprising, she was from Tokyo and assumed all foreigners would have the "standard" Tokyo accent.

Good luck in your studies, and welcome to the forum.

 

[hyreia77]

Thanks a lot. You were a great help. Hahaha... good stories too ^^. Btw, I have no proper "teacher." The only ones around who did anything to provoke me to learn Japanese was my "Introductions to Language" teacher in 7th grade (she mispronounciated EVERY word in Japanese, no one knew either, I didn't figure it out till I went out and studied a little myself... like a year later ). My other is my Spanish teacher... it definently inspired me seeing an ordinary person able to fully speak a foeign language. Granted Spanish isn't that foeign since they're in our backyard so to speak. Glad to hear the dialect thing.

I'd like to say something else, for a little while I was paused in my study... no more, every once of my freetime is either spent studying or sleeping . Yeah I know, "dont burn yourself out". But the problem with learning a foeign language is you typically don't hear it enough to let it completely sink in, if you hear it at all. My friends think its awesome im learning japanese but they are so discouraged by it no matter what I tell them XD.
-"Cool. Japanese? Good luck."
-"You should learn too dude, its easier then it sounds"
-"Oh really?"
*he picks up a book im learning from and quickly shuts it*
-"Nah, that's alright, I'll leave it to you."

EDIT: Never ending parenthesis comment... dang I used to be good at spelling ><;
Learning another language will do that...

 

[Rgchrono]

Of the 7 years I spent in Japan 6 of those were in Kansai so my accent is very Kansai. My uncle had a Japanese exchange student come stay with him, when I went to visit I introduced myself in Japanese and the girl burst out laughing uncontrollably. I wondered if I had mad a mistake, so I asked the girl why she was laughing. She said hearing such a strong Kansai accent from a foreigner was surprising, she was from Tokyo and assumed all foreigners would have the "standard" Tokyo accent.

you know. I had the same thing happened to me in my japanese 4 class. There were 3 japanese girls who helped out in the class, and were taking the class for an easy A and to learn how to teach japanese, well one of them was helping me say japanese words. So, she began with easy words and I just said what she said. Then she began to give me hard ones and I would say the words she would say. It got to the point that I saw her laughing. I was clueless and I asked her what was the problem, did I say the words wrong? she said that my accent sounded good and that it was strange for her to listen to a person who was not japanese, and who was a beginner, say japanese words correctly. That was good for me, at the same time strange.

 

[GaijinPunch]

I think even if you speak kind of "middle of the road" people will think you sound a bit effeminate. I learned a fair deal from talking with my wife. The rest I learned from a group of friends. While young, most of them weren't the "young Japanese" type if that makes sense. Quite a few of them were gay as well, so of course my work colleagues said I sounded too polite. what though... it was work. 0_o

 

[hyreia77]

Can I still post on this thread? Or would that be kicking? :/ Anyway I got more questions. Here they go!
1. About the "Standard" Dialect, so, are all u's at the end of a word always unvoiced or are there exceptions?

2. Hey, can you guys tell me about some other dialects? ^^ Like how does this Kansai sound? What makes it different? Please tell! I'm curious!
um... let's see here, wut else? uh, that's it on dialects! Thanks for viewing! And domo arigato gozaimas(u) to anyone replying ^^

 

[Glenn]

Can I still post on this thread? Or would that be kicking? :/

It's perfectly fine.

Anyway I got more questions. Here they go!
1. About the "Standard" Dialect, so, are all u's at the end of a word always unvoiced or are there exceptions?

There are exceptions. I think it's best to listen to it a lot if you have the chance.

2. Hey, can you guys tell me about some other dialects? ^^ Like how does this Kansai sound? What makes it different? Please tell! I'm curious!
um... let's see here, wut else? uh, that's it on dialects! Thanks for viewing! And domo arigato gozaimas(u) to anyone replying ^^

It uses different words in some places (ooki ni instead of arigatou), different morphology in some places (wakarahen instead of wakaranai), and a different accent pattern.

 

[Exidez]

Can I still post on this thread? Or would that be kicking? :/ Anyway I got more questions. Here they go!
1. About the "Standard" Dialect, so, are all u's at the end of a word always unvoiced or are there exceptions?

2. Hey, can you guys tell me about some other dialects? ^^ Like how does this Kansai sound? What makes it different? Please tell! I'm curious!
um... let's see here, wut else? uh, that's it on dialects! Thanks for viewing! And domo arigato gozaimas(u) to anyone replying ^^

when i was living in japan i lived in aomori which is the most northern prefecture in the main island. There they speak two dialects which are simular to each other but extremely different from standard japanese. The left part of the prefectue speak tsugaru-ben and the east part of the prefect speak nambu-ben.
when these people speak outside there area (for example tokyo) people often think they are speaking english or some other language because they do not understand a word they are saying. apparently these dialects are the hardest to learn.
not only is the internation different but the words are also different.
for example if you want to say where are you going "doko ni iku no?"
it will sound like "do sa igu no?" (most of the time they just say "do sa")
and if you are going to the public bath you would answer "onsen e" or "onsen ni" but in this dialect you would say "yu sa"

its a very difficult dialect but fun to learn

 

[Kama]

Exidez, it really sounds like an another language.

 

[nhk9]

when i was living in japan i lived in aomori which is the most northern prefecture in the main island. There they speak two dialects which are simular to each other but extremely different from standard japanese. The left part of the prefectue speak tsugaru-ben and the east part of the prefect speak nambu-ben.
when these people speak outside there area (for example tokyo) people often think they are speaking english or some other language because they do not understand a word they are saying. apparently these dialects are the hardest to learn.
not only is the internation different but the words are also different.
for example if you want to say where are you going "doko ni iku no?"
it will sound like "do sa igu no?" (most of the time they just say "do sa")
and if you are going to the public bath you would answer "onsen e" or "onsen ni" but in this dialect you would say "yu sa"

its a very difficult dialect but fun to learn

Prior to your post I have never heard of this hougen before... but I was quite interested in it after reading your post. For those who are interested as well, here's a short article at Wikipedia

津軽弁 - Wikipedia

And speaking of dialects... I have a kansai dialect question that I would appreciate some help on...

My question is on the meaning of "なんでやねん"。 It seems to me that "nande" can mean "why", and "yanen" is probably equivalent to "na no da"... however, I am not able to understand the meaning of the two put together... thanks in advance

 

[CorDarei]

My question is on the meaning of "なんでやねん"。 It seems to me that "nande" can mean "why", and "yanen" is probably equivalent to "na no da"... however, I am not able to understand the meaning of the two put together... thanks in advance

Try this: "Naze nan da??" Does that help? If not, have you ever heard someone say "Nande da?" The "na no da"/"nan da" basically just indicates a greater interest in the answer (in this case). Someone else might have a more informed answer, but I think it's mostly just the difference between "why?" and "why?!?", if that makes sense.

久しぶりに投稿してなんか懐かしい～

 

[Exidez]

Prior to your post I have never heard of this hougen before... but I was quite interested in it after reading your post. For those who are interested as well, here's a short article at Wikipedia

津軽弁 - Wikipedia

And speaking of dialects... I have a kansai dialect question that I would appreciate some help on...

My question is on the meaning of "なんでやねん"。 It seems to me that "nande" can mean "why", and "yanen" is probably equivalent to "na no da"... however, I am not able to understand the meaning of the two put together... thanks in advance

なんでやねん is a tricky one. I haven't actually picked out a direct word for it but i have kind of picked it as "What the Hell!?!" or "Why the hell you do that for". Its something of a reaction from someone...

 

[TheKansaiKid]

yanen is really used as a plain form of desu in many situations, nandeyanen is quite popular with comedians, and if I had to translate it I would say something like: so what the hell is up with that. Although that still doesn't match exactly... like many things with language there really is no exact equivilant. Trying to translate every nuance behind some of the simplest concepts like genki can be impossible.