Ben ben ben ben bento?!
Sitting in class right now with a bit of downtime. We're researching possible field trips for Friday--Intermediate Level is almost entirely field work and speaking with each other and locals, and for that I'm grateful. I have my on days and my off days.
Jin-san and I have been gunning for a week or so now to get the teachers to teach us the Osaka-ben dialect, which, to be honest, sounds hilarious. It's actually a prestige/comic dialect in Japan, and comedians use it often; people in Kansai (the region of which Osaka is a subset) are considered by the Japanese to be funnier, more personable, and wittier than the average Joe-san. It actually does sound great, and you can't help but grin when you hear it. It really just sounds awesome, to be blunt.
So Jin-san and I kept asking Tabata-sensei, our favorite teacher, to teach us Osaka-ben. She taught us one or two words, but otherwise held out--until today, when she brought in an actual TEXTBOOK on how to speak Osaka-ben. Jin-san went through the roof with joy. He's been poring over it all day.
Now truth be told, I always wanted to learn Hiroshima-ben dialect. It's just odd-sounding. It's SOMEWHAT recognizable as Japanese, but to be honest, most people from Tokyo wouldn't be able to distinguish it. (It's almost as removed as the relationship between English and Welsh... almost.) Again, though, the sound of it is just unbelievable. It's got this sort of slurred twang to it. D's turn to J's. (darou, "I guess," turns to jarou and the effect is great.) So I went to look it up, learned a few words and phrases, got the basic accent down, and started speaking to my teacher in it.
She nearly collapsed laughing.
She could barely understand what I was saying, it turns out, but she knew immediately it was Hiroshima-ben, so I guess that's a start. She did, however, comment that I sound like a yakuza, and pointed out that's where a lot of the yakuza come from. So I will bear in mind to use Hiroshima-ben only with caution. Osaka-ben, on the other hand, I'm falling in love with, and I've been told that as a foreigner, responding to an Osaka native in their own dialect always gets a surprised smile.
Jin and I now have a plan to give our presentations in Osaka-ben and Hiroshima-ben, respectively.
Wish me luck!
Jin-san and I have been gunning for a week or so now to get the teachers to teach us the Osaka-ben dialect, which, to be honest, sounds hilarious. It's actually a prestige/comic dialect in Japan, and comedians use it often; people in Kansai (the region of which Osaka is a subset) are considered by the Japanese to be funnier, more personable, and wittier than the average Joe-san. It actually does sound great, and you can't help but grin when you hear it. It really just sounds awesome, to be blunt.
So Jin-san and I kept asking Tabata-sensei, our favorite teacher, to teach us Osaka-ben. She taught us one or two words, but otherwise held out--until today, when she brought in an actual TEXTBOOK on how to speak Osaka-ben. Jin-san went through the roof with joy. He's been poring over it all day.
Now truth be told, I always wanted to learn Hiroshima-ben dialect. It's just odd-sounding. It's SOMEWHAT recognizable as Japanese, but to be honest, most people from Tokyo wouldn't be able to distinguish it. (It's almost as removed as the relationship between English and Welsh... almost.) Again, though, the sound of it is just unbelievable. It's got this sort of slurred twang to it. D's turn to J's. (darou, "I guess," turns to jarou and the effect is great.) So I went to look it up, learned a few words and phrases, got the basic accent down, and started speaking to my teacher in it.
She nearly collapsed laughing.
She could barely understand what I was saying, it turns out, but she knew immediately it was Hiroshima-ben, so I guess that's a start. She did, however, comment that I sound like a yakuza, and pointed out that's where a lot of the yakuza come from. So I will bear in mind to use Hiroshima-ben only with caution. Osaka-ben, on the other hand, I'm falling in love with, and I've been told that as a foreigner, responding to an Osaka native in their own dialect always gets a surprised smile.
Jin and I now have a plan to give our presentations in Osaka-ben and Hiroshima-ben, respectively.
Wish me luck!
posted by Meredith at 10:36 AM
1 Comments:
Hurry up and post about Mt. Fuji and your new yakuza tattoos.
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