Good listening for Kansai Dialect, Masculine Japanese

From time to time, while practicing Japanese by listening to online streaming media, I watch Seebit TV, which is a local TV station based out of Hyogo Prefecture. Some of the programming appears to be public-access style programming, and there’s some amusing gems among the line-up. One comedy show is called “Kitaikan”, and their own website can be found here.

From Seebit TV, it’s a little hard to find, but you can reach it by searching “All Programs” for “キタイ花ん”. As of writing, they seem to have 8 or 9 shows lasting about 30 minutes. The reason why I mention this show is because it’s an all-guys cast, and they’re speaking in masculine Japanese, with local Kansai dialect. Speaking from experience, as a student of Japanese language, it’s hard to get good, reliable sources for listening to casual, male Japanese. Most foreigners tend to learn Japanese from female sources first, so our Japanese often sounds feminine. I honestly didn’t know this for a long time, because I learned all my Japanese from my wife, but a friend of our’s was a guy from Osaka who spoke pretty differently. Not just the dialect, but his tones and style were just different. Also, formal, business Japanese is more gender-neutral, so when you study formal Japanese, it doesn’t sound the same as casual, male Japanese. So if you’re a new student to Japanese, your Japanese may sound too feminine at times, or too formal. Of course, if you are in a formal situation, that’s to be expected. However, as you make friends, you might be too formal and not know it. It is a delicate balance as a language student.

Now, I mention all this for informational purposes only, and for practicing listening. Just because the guys around you might speak very informal and use something like Kansai dialect doesn’t mean you should do it too. Oftentimes, the safest approach for a foreigner studying Japanese is to stick with standard Japanese (hyōjungo 標準語), and be fairly gender-neutral. Don’t be feminine (unless you are a girl), but don’t try too hard to sound masculine either. If you use masculine Japanese wrong, you’ll rub people the wrong way. My wife gets annoyed when I do that, for example. Her father uses masculine Japanese typical for his generation so she is used to hearing it, but when I use it, she thinks it’s abrasive. So, for me, it’s important to unlearn feminine habits I picked up from her, but also to understand, but not really emulate, masculine Japanese. As long as I can understand what’s being said, and respond in a way people can understand clearly, that’s a big accomplishment and more than enough. Don’t get fancy, in other words.

Since a lot of comedians in Japan come from Osaka, you’ll hear a lot of Kansai dialect on TV, so it’s good to get familiar so you can enjoy the show.¹ But when communicating yourself, stick with a safe bet. Foreign languages are hard enough, without trying to act cool and emulate a dialect. Imagine a beginner student of English from Beijing trying to show off a Brooklyn accent to his friends, and you’ll see how out-of-place it sounds. :-p

Anyway, enjoy the show! These guys are funny and a half-hour can teach you a few things.

¹ Okamura from グルナイ is genuinely a funny guy. I never get tired of him.