Japanese Dialects

[Starry Starry Fright]

I stuck this in here because there is really no other place to put it. For those of you who ever plan to visiting Japan, however, this is a very important topic.

So...

There is more than one "version" of Japanese out there; the different versions are called dialects. Let me explain how this works a little, using English.

I can give you an example of dialect right now - there are very subtle differences in dialect. Most of you probably speak Standard American English, or a sub-form of it. I speak Canadian Maritime English, which I'm willing to bet none of you speak in. If you and I were to have a conversation, though, we would have no problem communicating. Dialects are not the same as accents - Canadian Maritime English and Standard American English can be spoken with the same accent. There are just subtle differences in some of the words we use and the inflections we have.

For example - you might say that you "pull" on a rope. In my dialect, we "yard" on it. You might say a road is "slippery". You would understand what I mean. In my dialect, we say "slippy". The differences are there, but they're subtle, and you would probably have to have a pretty long conversation with me before you noticed my dialect is different than yours. Our dialects are similar. But if, say, someone who spoke Trinidadian English were to speak to my cousin, who speaks Yarmouth English (very strange Canadian dialect), there could be some trouble understanding each other.

If you really want to, by the way, you can find your exact dialect here.

So how do we apply this to Japanese? I have been teaching you a dialect called hyōjungo, which literally translates to "Standard Language". It is one of the "main" dialects in Japan, and is endorsed by the Japanese government. Japanese language proficiency tests are administered in hyōjungo, and most businesses use this dialect. However, there are limits to it.

There are over 200 dialects in use in Japan - they good news is, roughly half of those are extremely similar to the hyōjungo dialect. There are minor differences - some dialects use "shi" instead of "hi", others use "na" at the end of sentences instead of "ne", etc.

The bad news is, once you leave the Kantou region of Japan (Area around Tokyo), you're going to start to have difficulties. Some dialects, like the ones spoken in areas of Hokkaido and Okinawa are considered nearly unintelligible to native speakers of Japanese. In areas that are especially mountainous, you can expect to find a slightly different dialect as you go from village to village.

You can see a full list of Japanese dialects here.

So, if you're planning on traveling to Japan, what should you do? Which dialect is best?

1. Learn the hyōjungo dialect. This is the most widespread dialect, and it is the one that Japanese people will expect to hear you speaking. Most of the educational resources out there deal exclusively with this dialect, and it is by far the accessible dialect to non-Japanese people.

2. Figure out where it is you are going in Japan - there are three major dialect families in Japanese. There's the Tokyo-type dialects (which include hyōjungo), the Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects and the Kyuushuu-type dialects, which are less common and more distinct than the other two. You will want to tweak your Japanese just a little, to incorporate only the major differences between the hyōjungo dialect and the dialect family you will be using.

3. Avoid picking up a specific regional dialect. It will be uncomfortable for native Japanese speakers to hear you speaking in any specific dialect. They want to hear you speak hyōjungo, or a modified version of hyōjungo. That's just what they expect. Also, many specific regional dialects carry stereotypes with them, many of which are some version of "filthy hicks speak this dialect". Try to keep to hyōjungo as much as possible, allowing room for only general and major dialect differences.

Any questions or comments? Let's discuss them!  

[Kai Shi]

I'd say that Japanese dialects shouldn't really be a concern unless you end up in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of old folks who speak really thickly accented Japanese. Otherwise... biggrin Not a problem.

One example of dialect differences can be seen in the word totemo or very.

Standard Japanese: とても or ちょう

Osaka-ben/kansai-ben: めっちゃ

Hokkaido-ben: なまら

There's also grammatical differences but I'd be more concerned about nailing down standard Japanese first. That's problem enough in my opinion lol  

[Starry Starry Fright]

Kai Shi

I'd say that Japanese dialects shouldn't really be a concern unless you end up in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of old folks who speak really thickly accented Japanese. Otherwise... biggrin Not a problem.

One example of dialect differences can be seen in the word totemo or very.

Standard Japanese: とても or ちょう

Osaka-ben/kansai-ben: めっちゃ

Hokkaido-ben: なまら

There's also grammatical differences but I'd be more concerned about nailing down standard Japanese first. That's problem enough in my opinion lol

I once had a teacher from Okinawa. xd We had two TAs who were from Tokyo and even they had difficulties understanding him sometimes.

Other than that, yes, standard Japanese is enough of an issue.  

[Danshoku Kotonii]

This explains why our counselors from Fukuoka giggled at our counselor from Saga, I guess.

xD

They all kept making her repeat words, and they'd all giggle.

Fukuoka and Saga aren't far from each other though, so I think she must have originally lived somewhere more north. I can't remember, though.