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Post Japanese-related YouTube links here

The 2024 Honolulu Marathon was run over the weekend. A number of videos in Japanese have already been posted.

Here is a promo video in English with Japanese subtitles.




Here is a video in Japanese but no English. (Can you spot the statue of Duke Kahanamoku in the background?)




This next video gives you a feel of just how crowded it was at the start line. In the beginning, it was so crowded, many people had to walk before there was room to run. Take a look at the crowd of people at 1:03. (Over 10,000 people participated.) The crowd finally starts moving at 2:34. They don't even reach the start line until 3:40. Check out the guy carrying a tuba at 4:22!


 
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Another type of video we can find easily on YouTube is videos of Japanese people flying to international locations on airliners. (There are a LOT of this kind of video on YouTube.)

Here is a video of a Japanese lady flying from Haneda (Tokyo) Airport to Dallas, Texas USA. One thing about this video is, she uses a lot of polite Japanese. (I don't think I have ever heard someone use so much polite Japanese in the middle of sentences.) This is good listening practice, but too challenging for students learning Japanese at the beginning level. The good thing is, the lady has put Japanese subtitles throughout the video, so it is easy to confirm what she is saying -- if you can read the kanji. (If you have questions about the kanji she uses, please feel free to ask.)

She is flying first class. Check out the mind-boggling luxury!

Video title
JAL最新A350-1000ファーストクラス搭乗記（羽田→ダラス）


 
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This is a video of women who are engineers (drivers) of Japan's Shinkansen (Bullet Train), who I think are very erai ("inspiring").

This video is quite different from the other videos I have posted in this thread, because it is not a video made for YouTube. It is a TV program that was video-taped off the air/cable and then posted on YouTube. The disadvantage for those of us who are using YouTube videos to practice our listening comprehension of spoken Japanese, is that this TV show is meant to be watched by Japanese adults who are fully fluent in understanding spoken Japanese and reading kanji. This makes this video more difficult to understand than any of the videos I have previously posted in this thread.

Japan is known for how well its trains depart and arrive at train stations on time. In this video, at 2:40 the observation is made that her Shinkansen departed FIFTEEN SECONDS LATE! Later, at Nagoya Station, it is observed at 5:15 that she arrived FIVE SECONDS LATE!

Such accuracy is amazing. There is no other country in the world which is so successful at being on time down to the second as Japan.

Video title
【密着】時速285キロの列車を操るママさん運転士＆快適運行を担う仕事人！東海道新幹線の舞台ウラ『every.特集』


 
This young violin prodigy is amazing. (She is Korean, not Japanese.) Listen to her do a great job of playing a very difficult piece on the violin


 
Watch this 12-year-old Japanese girl play hard rock on a guitar like you have never seen before. Watch from 4:31. (She also plays some AC/DC from 1:41.)


 
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Check out these huge matsuri (festival) floats in Tohoku (Northern) Japan with anime-looking themes. Watch from 5:40, 6:18, 7:55, 8:32, etc.

video title
Aomori Nebuta Festival | GIANT Lanterns & Fireworks at Japan's BIGGEST Summer Event!


 
Here is a YouTube video by Yuka-san giving her review of a flight on a commercial airliner. This is a flight from Hiroshima to Haneda (Tokyo).

This is good listening practice for people learning Japanese at the intermediate level and above.

I really like this video because this is how listening should be practiced. (I used to teach listening classes at a community college (semmongakkou) in Japan, and I was always unhappy with the way the curriculum taught listening.) This video does it the right way. It is based on text that is conversational Japanese, not written Japanese, which means it doesn't have too many kanji. (Spoken Japanese has a lot more hiragana per sentence than written Japanese.) Yuka-san has also included subtitles for every word in the video. So, as we watch the video, we can listen to what she is saying and see the words on the screen at the same time.

On my screen, I can see the Japanese sub-titles that she has embedded into her video and I can also see the English translation in sub-titles. If you do not see the English translation sub-titles on your screen, you may have to turn on that feature in your YouTube settings .

This video is also great for kanji learning/relearning/reviewing. There are several kanji in the video that I had forgotten. Seeing them on the screen, hearing her pronounce them, and hearing her using them in context really helps a lot. This is how kanji should be learned. My philosophy is, "Learn them as you need them. Learn them as you use them," rather than just memorizing list after list of kanji.

video title
Experience the Ultimate Luxury in Japan Airlines' First Class


 
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Here is another YouTube video from Yuka-san. In this video, she is driving cross-country, but it is getting late so she stops for the night. But I am surprised as she spends the night in her mini-van in a public parking lot at a rest stop along the highway.

I must say, I found this to be one of the most curious YouTube videos I have ever seen. Here is a pretty young lady who sleeps overnight in her van, alone, in a public parking lot, which I think is very unusual. Even more, she cooks dinner in her van. She sets up a portable grill and grills yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick)! Inside her van!

This video is good listening practice for students at the intermediate level and above. At the very least, a student who wishes to use this video as listening practice must have already mastered the reading and writing of hiragana. (Katakana also appear in this video.)

HOW TO USE THIS VIDEO FOR LISTENING PRACTICE.

While watching the video, listen to Yuka-san as she speaks, look at the Japanese sub-titles and also the English sub-titles. (If you are unable to see the English sub-titles on the screen, please do not hesitate to ask on how to get them to appear.)

While going through the video for the first time, write down all of the vocabulary and grammar points you are unfamiliar with. Feel free to ask for help on this. You may need to have someone write out a sentence or two for you in romaji. Just ask!

Next, turn off the English sub-titles, listen, and look at the Japanese sub-titles while watching the video.

Finally, listen to the entire video without looking at the Japanese sub-titles. (Put a piece of paper on the screen to cover them, or just don't look at the screen.

video title
Staying in a small car and cooking authentic Japanese yakitori


 
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This is a video of a 19-year-old female bus driver! (I think this young lady is very "erai" (inspiring).)

(In Japanese. no English sub-titles)

video title
【運転士不足解消に期待】19歳女性バス運転士デビューへ 訓練に密着


 
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Another female driver video, this one of a ferry boat captain in Osaka Bay, with service to Kansai Airport, an airport out in the middle of the bay.

(In Japanese, no English sub-titles)

video title
【"客の人生"を運ぶ】大阪湾を航行する高速船の船長 神戸空港ー関西空港を30分!【#推しごと拝見】


 
Another female driver video, this one of a subway driver.

Watch from 7:12 as she gets on a subway train and drives it.

(In Japanese. no English sub-titles)

video title
【1日密着】地下鉄乗務員の1日に密着！安心と安全を守る真剣な表情、若き運転手の決意とは!?


 
Ms. Ari Fuji is the only female airline captain in the history of Japanese aviation.

Here are two videos. The first one is in Japanese with English sub-titles. The second one is in English.

video title
May 07, 2019 | Meet Japan's first female airline captain



video title
JAL pilot is trailblazer for commercial flight industry in Japan

 
This video has a super annoying soundtrack. Like a little kids video game track. But this girl's 可愛さ helps make up for it.
Plus there are subtitles so one could potentially use it to learn something. So I introduce to you Biker Girl Bowler Aika.

 
I don't think I have ever seen an adult throw a bowling ball two-handed like that, launching it into the air like that.
 
Buntaro said:
I don't think I have ever seen an adult throw a bowling ball two-handed like that, launching it into the air like that.
Click to expand...
It's a modern innovation of the sport. Some professionals do it. Many kids on my son's bowling team use that technique. Many videos on it if you care to look.

Also relatively new is the two finger (no thumb) technique.
 
Apparently, a two-handed release (両手投げリリース) in bowling is more common than I thought. Take a look.




Watch from 0:29 as this Japanese lady throws a two-handed strike. I hadn't noticed before, but this technique includes hop-and-skip footwork in the middle. Watch this in both videos.

 
I mentioned elsewhere on this forum that the most popular textbook for learning beginning Japanese seems to be the Genki textbook series. One thing I noticed is that people have posted videos on YouTube to go along with each book and even each chapter. Here are FIVE different videos series posted by five different people. Take a look and see which you like the best. (The last video I am posting here has a number of anime videos incorporated into the video, so some people might find that especially helpful and fun to watch.)










 
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Here is a man (Korean, not Japanese) playing two koto at the same time! (This is the first time I have ever seen anyone playing two koto at the same time.)


 
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Here is a curious (and well-done) rendition of the classic karaoke song 津軽海峡・冬景色 (Tsugaru Kaikyou Fuyu Geshiki) (The winter scenery of the Tsugaru Strait). This is a video of 12 people who came together via the Internet to sing together virtually and make a video.

(Tsugaru Strait is the large piece of water between Hokkaido Island and Honshu Island. Honshu Island is the largest and main island of Japan. Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc. are all on Honshu Island.)


 
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Only 1% of all Japanese soy sauce breweries use wooden barrels, which, on average, last 150 years. So when shoyu brewer Yamamoto Yasuo ordered a batch of nine barrels with the last remaining cooper in Japan, it was the manufacturer's first order since WWII. Yamamoto then decided to make his own barrels to save the craft for another generation.

NHK video:

Traditional Soy Sauce for the World: Yamamoto Yasuo / Fifth-Generation Soy Sauce Producer - Direct Talk | NHK WORLD-JAPAN

For over 150 years, Yamamoto Yasuo's family has made soy sauce in wooden barrels. This traditional method is close to dying out, but Yamamoto intends to keep it alive for future generations.
www3.nhk.or.jp

Yamamoto is also on YT:


 
I am not sure if this is a JR employee providing the service or not, but regardless, providing this service for a wheelchair passenger is just amazing.

 
Buntaro said:
I am not sure if this is a JR employee providing the service or not, but regardless, providing this service for a wheelchair passenger is just amazing.

Click to expand...
Back when elevators were much less prevalent about 30 years ago, my dad visited me in Tokyo and we had to take a train at one point. At one of the stations, the eki-in carried him in his wheelchair up an entire two flights of stairs. I wouldn't have known how to request this service so it must have happened organically somehow.
 
Here is something I have never seen before. A train station platform with an automated extension for wheelchairs. It seems the platform extension ends up at the exact right right, allowing it to be 'flush' with the height of the train car floor. It looks like the extension rises up, determines the height of the train car floor, and adjusts to be at that height. In this way, it seems it can accommodate different train car floors with different heights.

 
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