Kansai dialect

[ckobata]

I notice that there is going to be a Niigata dialect......
AND Aomori dialect has been covered but where is the most WIDELY used dialect....KANSAI?

[josiah]

ckobataさん、
this question comes up again and again, and i personally have tried to get something going with markyさん,　but the truth is, is that jpod101 being based in tokyo, most of the voice cast are from tokyo, or just not from osaka, or kansai area.
so we need someone from kansai in tokyo, or willing to come to tokyo to do some recording, and then kansai dialect can be covered.

hope i've answered your question

nuff' said

[greentangel]

Is Kansai-ben the one that refers to "me" as "uchi"? Or is Uchi just a casual form of watashi?

[markystar]

not sure about kansai dialect, but in standard japanese uchi is used when talking about your ingroup. so i might say うちのお父さん or うちの犬, my/our father and my/our dog (respectively).

i think i heard something about kansai girls using uchi to refer to themselves casually. but i might be imagining things. i think there are many more people in this forum who know more about kansai-ben than i do.

[arrowisland]

I've heard a few Kansai girls refer to themselves directly as うち rather than 私 or some other variant, you're not just imagining things

[markystar]

whew!

btw - i gave an intro script to nori the other day and asked him to spice it up a little bit. what he gave me was all in kansai-ben.
i didn't know but he grew up near osaka... so things may be coming together sooner or later. i really, really hope so!

[rachelsmith]

kansaiben is my favourite dialect. It sounds so unusual. I bought a book about it, and I hope to study there in my year in Japan in 2009.
To get into the swing of it, I occasionally say "chau" instead of "chigau" and "ya" at the end of my sentences.
I became really interested after watching the anime "lovely complex".
I can't wait for any podcasts on the dialect

[gerald_ford]

A oft-ignored dialect I hear from my father-in law a lot is the "kanagawa" dialect (as in Kanagawa prefecture), but it's only found in the country-side.

An example of the difference from standard Japanese is:

..... da ne? (is that so)

Kanagawa-ben:

..... dan be?

It took me sooooo long figure out what was being said. Others I've met who grew up in the coutnry areas of Kanagawa prefecture sound like that. Also, my other in-laws in Tochigi also have certain nuances that are different. The words don't sound different, but the tones are, and that keeps throwing me off.

[markystar]

it's funny you mention that...

most people in places like kanagawa and chiba speak 標準語 (standard japanese) and don't even know that there is a dialect there.

that べ (be) is a characteristic of the tohoku area and kantou area (tho it wasn't part of the old edo dialect which became the tokyo dialect).

did you check out the Aomori Dialect lessons? lots of "be"s in there! lol

[markystar]

by the ways guys...
for those of you interested in kansai-ben

the lesson on Sat Jun 7th features a character from 大阪 and he only uses 大阪弁 when he speaks.

it's not a culture class on 大阪弁, but you can hear it in action in this lesson.
oh, and there's some in the review track too! so you can practice it on the good and in the learning center!

awwwwwwwwww yeah!

[gerald_ford]

it's funny you mention that...

most people in places like kanagawa and chiba speak 標準語 (standard japanese) and don't even know that there is a dialect there.
that べ (be) is a characteristic of the tohoku area and kantou area (tho it wasn't part of the old edo dialect which became the tokyo dialect).

Yeah my wife is from Kanagawa and definitely speaks standard japanese, but her mother is from further north while her dad is from a remote part of kanagawa.

did you check out the Aomori Dialect lessons? lots of "be"s in there! lol

I am a late joiner to JPod101, so I am still slogging through lessons 66 and up. They just touched on that stuff lately. :p

So many lessons, so little time. [/quote]

[SpamMusubi]

I just saw the movie "Shaberedomo Shaberedomo" and in it is a kid who is transplanted from Osaka to Tokyo and who speaks Kansai-ben to beat the band. He's made fun of at school for this. He even does a rakugo in Osaka-ben. What a hoot!

[marqs]

One weird thing is the -nai -> -hen, eg. wakaranai -> wakarahen, dekinai -> dekihen etc.

Wikipedia has suprisingly lot of info on kansai-ben.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai-ben

[Kazu1985]

Kansai dialect is not just one dialect, its a whole group of various dialects in this region. So you cannot basically say that you want to study Kansai dialect. You should be more specific.

The dialects of that region show specific similarities, but they also differ a lot from each other, in terms of grammar, accent and vocabulary, etc. Even Osaka dialect has to be specified more -- North and South of Osaka are quite different.

Example for the negation -nai (hyoojungo)
Forms that are primarily used in these specific regions.

kaku (to write)
Kyoto: kakahen
Osaka (North): kakehen
Osaka (South): kakihin / kakihen

dekiru (can)
Kyoto: dekihin
Osaka (North): dekehen
Osaka (South): dekehen

kuru (to come)
Kyoto: kihin
Osaka (North): kehen
Osaka (South): kehen / kohen

Just to make you aware, that it is not just Kansai dialect.
So: Back to work on my BA thesis on exactely that topic (well, on Osaka dialect primarily, but of course one has to compare).

[Psy]

Wow, way to revive an old topic. Here's a fabulous resource I was told of recently, granted you need to know some standard Japanese to make much use of it:

http://www2g.biglobe.ne.jp/~gomma/

A long vocabulary list on the same site:

http://www2g.biglobe.ne.jp/~gomma/ajiten.html