Hey guys, which one of the two dialects from the title is more different or let’s say less intelligible for someone who knows the Japanese from the Tokyo area? Which one would be a bigger time investment to learn on top of you knowing the Tokyo-ben.
Once you have a good foundation in standard Japanese it doesn’t really take that much effort to be able to understand the main inflection differences from one to other, but there are some specific word choices that can be pretty confusing even for native speakers.
One recent example of how approachable this is came out this weekend. The movie すずめの戸締まり has characters speaking in Miyagi-ben (kyuhsu), Kansai-ben, and a dialect from shikoku and it was all completely understandable. (I do travel a lot but I’ve never lived in any of those places.)
As far as a few examples of where word choices change here are my two favorites:
* Take out the trash is ゴミを捨てる but in Hokkaido they say ゴミを投げる * If you want something put back in it’s place you would say バッグ戻して but in Fukuoka it’s バッグ直して
Each region has tons of these things and really the only way to learn them is to hear them, be completely confused, and then ask for a clarification.
There’s also tons of blogs and videos about various dialects but they are generally made for native speakers so having a strong foundation in standard Japanese and knowing Japanese grammar terms helps a lot. For Hakata-ben (Fukuoka) in particular I would check out みことね as they have made several videos on the topic and speak mostly Hakata-ben in their videos.
There are some dialect specific words but overall Fukuoka and Kansai dialect aren’t too difficult for anyone who understands Tokyo-ben compared to other dialects.
Most people have a functional understanding of Kansai-ben because it is common to hear it on TV.
Fukuoka dialect retains a similar intonation to hyojungo so it’s not difficult to pick out what they’re saying.
But I could be biased because I speak Fukuoka dialect so it’s easy to me 😅
2 comments
Once you have a good foundation in standard Japanese it doesn’t really take that much effort to be able to understand the main inflection differences from one to other, but there are some specific word choices that can be pretty confusing even for native speakers.
One recent example of how approachable this is came out this weekend. The movie すずめの戸締まり has characters speaking in Miyagi-ben (kyuhsu), Kansai-ben, and a dialect from shikoku and it was all completely understandable. (I do travel a lot but I’ve never lived in any of those places.)
As far as a few examples of where word choices change here are my two favorites:
* Take out the trash is ゴミを捨てる but in Hokkaido they say ゴミを投げる
* If you want something put back in it’s place you would say バッグ戻して but in Fukuoka it’s バッグ直して
Each region has tons of these things and really the only way to learn them is to hear them, be completely confused, and then ask for a clarification.
There’s also tons of blogs and videos about various dialects but they are generally made for native speakers so having a strong foundation in standard Japanese and knowing Japanese grammar terms helps a lot. For Hakata-ben (Fukuoka) in particular I would check out みことね as they have made several videos on the topic and speak mostly Hakata-ben in their videos.
[【方言】双子の福岡弁・博多弁講座！！勝手に福岡PR#1](https://youtu.be/oaluJLKr8WQ)
There are some dialect specific words but overall Fukuoka and Kansai dialect aren’t too difficult for anyone who understands Tokyo-ben compared to other dialects.
Most people have a functional understanding of Kansai-ben because it is common to hear it on TV.
Fukuoka dialect retains a similar intonation to hyojungo so it’s not difficult to pick out what they’re saying.
But I could be biased because I speak Fukuoka dialect so it’s easy to me 😅