colloquial Japanese

[jcdietz03]

I have a hard enough time with non-obfuscated Japanese!

Anime is fine. It's main problem is that everyone speaks slowly in Anime as compared to real life. Which is fine if you're a beginner. Apparently, people in Inuyasha's feudal era speak mostly contemporary colloquial Japanese.

[Yudan Taiteki]

It's main problem is that everyone speaks slowly in Anime as compared to real life.

That may depend on who you talk to -- I've never found anime to be any slower or faster than real life Japanese. Some Japanese speakers are faster than others, though.

[phreadom]

It's main problem is that everyone speaks slowly in Anime as compared to real life.

That may depend on who you talk to -- I've never found anime to be any slower or faster than real life Japanese. Some Japanese speakers are faster than others, though.

This reminds me of something I noticed watching the drama 笑顔の法則 recently... Abe Hiroshi's character talked very fast and informally it seemed, so I had a very hard time picking out what he was saying. Most of the other characters spoke much more clearly and seemingly a little more slowly. (One of the women also spoke rather eccentrically and was also a bit harder to follow as well)

Is there a kind of gender distinction that women tend to speak a little more clearly, slowly, and/or more formally than men?

[NileCat]

Is there a kind of gender distinction that women tend to speak a little more clearly, slowly, and/or more formally than men?

There is a tendency in those typical TV dramas that heroines speak clearly and relatively formally because they should be loved of many random viewers. But when it comes to real life, many talkative ladies speak like a machine gun. Honestly speaking, it is very tough to keep up with them even for Japanese men... I'll tell you a knack. Just nod whatever the lady said to you. It doesn't matter if you understood or not. You're always expected to agree with them, my friend.

[becki_kanou]

Is there a kind of gender distinction that women tend to speak a little more clearly, slowly, and/or more formally than men?

There is a tendency in those typical TV dramas that heroines speak clearly and relatively formally because they should be loved of many random viewers. But when it comes to real life, many talkative ladies speak like a machine gun. Honestly speaking, it is very tough to keep up with them even for Japanese men... I'll tell you a knack. Just nod whatever the lady said to you. It doesn't matter if you understood or not. You're always expected to agree with them, my friend.

Ha! My husband's favorite English phrase (taught to him by my father, no less) is "Yes, Dear".

[mbridge]

ladies speak like a machine gun

I had watched a movie called "Funky Forest" (movie? more like a collection of nonsensical chaos that goes on for an hour) and in there these was a group of three girls who reminded me of that. They'd seriously say something だから私は何も知っていませんよ in like 1 second. There were parts of their conversation where I couldn't even guess what they said but indeed, the general reaction to everything they said to each other would be "あ、そそそそそ!” (あ、そうです)　and a lot of head bowing.

Funky forest - the first contact[16-53-08].jpg (40.46 KiB) Viewed 1182 times

Funky forest - the first contact[16-53-25].jpg (46.17 KiB) Viewed 1182 times

(She talks really fast in this scene. It's about 28 minutes into the movie, right after they arrive at the ryokan.)

I just assumed this is how tokyo people talk though.... Even though I don't know they're from Tokyo. But when I hear people who talk quickly I think of city people.

[astaroth]

Just nod whatever the lady said to you. It doesn't matter if you understood or not. You're always expected to agree with them, my friend.

Isn't that the golden rule of man-woman relations? Irregardless of culture, language, religion, or political view?

This reminds me of something I noticed watching the drama 笑顔の法則 recently... Abe Hiroshi's character talked very fast and informally it seemed,

I watched a couple of dramas with Abe Hiroshi and gotta say I've trouble to understand him most of the time ... and as Phreadom noted I find actresses usually easier to understand than actors. Though not of the time, for instance I have a very hard time understanding Shibasaki Kou in Galileo.

[keatonatron]

Maybe it's because most of my experience is with cell phone BBS's, and none of those characters are included in a cell phone's character set

[phreadom]

Isn't that the golden rule of man-woman relations? Irregardless of culture, language, religion, or political view?

I really don't want to sound like a grammar nazi here... but this word is one of my personal pet peeves.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irregardless

It's one that many people use, and descriptivists argue that it is thus valid, and prescriptivists absolutely hate it...

Basically speaking it's not a "real word", but most likely an accidental blending of "irrespective" and "regardless" that seems to sound "good" (like extra smart), so it continues to be used by people in spite of it being "wrong", and thus descriptivists argue that if people are using it, and they understand what is meant when people say it, then technically it is a valid word.

I think linguists love to debate about this word (as seemingly do I).

[furrykef]

Yeah, I'm generally a descriptivist, but "irregardless" grates on my nerves too. Probably 'cause it was a word that was apparently invented by somebody trying to sound smarter than he actually is (not saying astaroth is that type of person; I'm sure he just picked it up from somewhere else, and of couse I give him extra slack since English isn't his native language).

- Kef

[Yudan Taiteki]

Actually descriptivists wouldn't say that the word is valid; descriptive linguistics does nothing more than describe usage -- saying that irregardless is a valid word is just lenient prescriptivism.

[furrykef]

If you define "valid" as "a usage that is in actual use by [other] native speakers", then I think that would be reasonably consistent with descriptivism.

[Yudan Taiteki]

But even that is a prescriptive standpoint. As soon as you label something "valid", you are prescribing use -- saying that it's OK to use irregardless is prescriptive, just as saying that it's not OK to use irregardless as prescriptive. Descriptive linguistics would look at the origin of the word, current and historical usage, places in which the word is used (i.e. is it used in formal situations? edited prose? academic prose? If so, how often?), etymology, whatever.

I guess this is sort of a pet peeve of mine but if we're criticizing uses of other words we should also use "descriptivism" correctly.

It is true that people who do descriptive linguistics tend to take a lenient prescriptive standpoint.

[phreadom]

ああぁ～ なるほど！ すみませんでした。

I suppose it doesn't help that I'm basically entirely self taught (ie; no formal schooling past high school outside of a few college classes such as Cultural Anthropology, computers, and art back in '92/'93), so I have to pick things up myself from sometimes less than optimal sources, or someone explains something to me and I don't understand it quite correctly... such as this case where I was arguing about "irregardless" with a linguist, and he used the descriptivist vs prescriptivist argument to defend the word. I obviously must have not understood quite correctly and thus "misfiled" that knowledge.

[Yudan Taiteki]

Well, don't worry too much -- I think the term "descriptivist" is very often used to mean "prescriptivism based on usage". I suppose in lenient prescriptivism that would make that use of "descriptivist" correct, so nobody should argue about that too much.