Learn Japanese at JapanesePod101.com! Today we have a treat for you! Yuuki and Rie from Niigata are here to talk about their hometown dialect, Niigata-ben. This dialect is not as difficult as Tsugaru-ben (the last dialect we covered), so it might be easier to take a stab at! This is the first of a 3 part series, so we hope you enjoy it! After listening, stop by JapanesePod101.com and be sure to leave us a post!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Japanese Culture Classes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
21 Responses to “Japanese Culture Class #52 - Niigata Dialect 1”
JapanesePod101.com says:
February 1st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Mina-san, 如何でしたか？ What’d you think?
Japanese Dialects are fascinating to compare with the standard language. We hope to cover many, many more dialects in the future. When we come across a native speaker of one who has the time to sit down with us, we’ll be doing so for them.
The Niigata Dialect is not as well known as many others, but nonetheless, there are thousands of people who speak it. Awwww yeah.
Eric says:
February 13th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
interesting lesson indeed
looking forward for the next part 
楽しみにしてます。
markystar says:
February 13th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
おもしぇびょん？ （津軽弁）
we really had a lot of fun preparing this 3 part series!
awwwwww yeah!
maxiewawa says:
February 13th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
やっとゆき先生もろった！久しぶり！オモシェビョかったです！
全部聞かなかったろも、今聞いてん。
「新潟弁は下手ですみません。がんばってん。」
One thing about this whole dialect series: it seems that most Japanese dialects are very similar to standard Japanese. Even though Yuki先生 isn’t from Niigata, he can read Niigata弁. In Japanese, it doesn’t seem to be the case. If someone from outside 上海 tried 上海弁, it would be impossible to read it without years of study. There are just sounds that aren’t in standard dialect that aren’t in 上海弁. Is there a clear delineation where something is a “language” and a “dialect”?
markystar says:
February 13th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
actually, yuki IS from Niigata. 
and most japanese can’t read other dialects. for example, naomi claims to only have understood 50%. if you remember back to the aomori dialect series, some other japanese staff said they could only understand 20%-30%.
but it’s interesting to think about the difference between language and dialect.
The famous linguist Max Weinreich once said “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” the idea being that governments tend to decide that one dialect is superior to the others.
the 標準語 (standard japanese) is based on the so-called tokyo dialect (which itself is based on 江戸弁, 三河弁 and 京都弁 (the shogun was based in 江戸, but his clan came from 三河. and many emissaries of the emperor came from 京都 to interact with the shogunate). although, standard japanese is based on this dialect, you can still find some old people here in tokyo who can speak 江戸弁 (one of its famous attributes is they can’t make a distinction between し and ひ and い and え are often confused or pronounced the same.)
but back to the difference between language and dialect, the power was in 江戸 for 250 years. and then the emperor moved to 江戸 changed the name to 東京. so the power has remained here, so the tokyo dialect has a prestige and is used for official purposed and in tv and text books, etc… 
クリス says:
February 13th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
i always like hearing the different dialects. marky, you said the aomori one was the only other one…but the Nagasaki connection did a lesson a while back too
I’m curious about Okinawan Japanese…a lot of my students say it’s totally a different language 
rigo says:
February 14th, 2008 at 4:16 am
im listening for the second time and its amazing
my favorite one is ” baka “
Neil says:
February 14th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Which of the new grammar is the dialect and which is standard?
Shirow66 says:
February 14th, 2008 at 4:39 am
The JCC’s are my favorite lessons, I hope you guys will be more active in putting them out there because it really has been far between lessons lately. I’m not sure if you have abandoned the non-language related topics(which would be a great shame in my opinion), but I’ll gladly take whatever JCC is presented.
Marky-san, do your co-workers ever complain about over-frequent aaaaaaaaww yeaah usage?
Jason says:
February 14th, 2008 at 5:18 am
I’m curious about Okinawan Japanese…a lot of my students say it’s totally a different language
That’s because it was! Okinawa was an independent country until it got absorbed by Japan.
ジャービジ says:
February 14th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Great lesson. Rie-san’s accent was really cool. I hardly understood any of the original dialogue, even though I understood the standard version. It’s certainly different. Looking forward to the next instalment
プチクレア says:
February 14th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Great lesson ! I too love those language lessons ! Too bad they’re so few and far between.
However, マーキー先生, you said, this was the second language lesson after Tsugaru-Ben. But there were some Nagasaki-ben lessons with the Nagasaki Connection gang, right ?
markystar says:
February 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
hahaha, yep you guys are right… there was a Nagasaki dialect lesson (or two). My bad.
ジャービジさん、she has a great voice, huh?
Shirow66さん、have no fear! we have more culture-related items coming down the pipe. also there were some requests for stuff involving some japanese history, so i hope to get around to doing something about the Bakumatsu around the time of the anniversary of Kondo Isami’s death. as for “awwww yeah,” some people have picked up the habit themselves 
and to be honest, i have no idea where i picked it up from…
for those of you who are interested…
here is a link to a 標準語→新潟弁コンバーター (standard japanese to niigata dialect translator). i’m not sure what version of niigata-ben it is… seems a little different than the one rie-san and yuuki-san speak - and as an electronic translator, it’s bound to be a little wierd… but still fun!
http://www2.icn.ne.jp/~sonmin/hougen/henkan.html
for those of you who are *really* interested…
at the middle of this page you can see the same sentence translated into a various regional varieties of niigata-ben. (there are tons of other dialects listed here too, using the same sample sentence; note the varieties of tsugaru-ben as well!)
http://hougen.atok.com/column/doc/pc/honyaku02.html
marky
クリス says:
February 14th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
wow, that’s interesting…all the different kinds of dialects in niigata alone 
i lived in kobe for three years, and there was kansai-ben…but also osaka-ben, kobe-ben, kyoto-ben and wakayama-ben. my friend said her boyfriend’s wakayama ben sounded really rough and threatening
whatever happened to the nagasaki connection? 
did they go back to nagasaki?
Peter says:
February 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I thought this was a great lesson, it’s always fun to have something random to pull out when you’re joking around with your Japanese friends.
My Japanese co-workers (we’re in Tokyo) were extremely amused… none of them could understand the dialogue when I had them listen to it! Though they were skeptical that all people in Niigata speak like that, they figured it would only be like おじいさん who would speak with such a thick accent.
Tuuli says:
February 15th, 2008 at 2:45 am
I really enjoyed this lesson! Thanks, I’m looking forward to more dialects. Sometimes it’s fun to listen to things you’re not even expected to understand 
Jiro says:
February 16th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Although I find these lessons fun and quite amusing, it frustrates me because I feel like I will NEVER be fully fluent….
JapanesePod101.com says:
February 16th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Jiroさん, luckily it’s a dialect and people who are not from Niigata can’t understand it either. So you CAN be fluent! 
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Category: Japanese Culture Classes |
Grammar: non standard | Function: talking about dogs | Topic: dialects, dogs, Niigata | Politeness Level: casual, Informal
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