Mixing politeness levels is the equivalent of "Greetings sir, sup? I do hope this day finds you well and totes ballin dawg. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance fam."
English schoolkids speak partially like that. Normal English politeness mixed with the "cool" of African American vernacular. my fucking dealer speaks like this
If someone uses the incorrect politeness level it can be overlooked in the most part but sometimes it can make you wince or cringe - but you usually dont say anything unless its super inappropriate like talking to a manager or something. Every politeness level you use adds a level of respect you have for the listener but can also increase the barrier between yourself and the listener. Polite language can be used to show your respect but using it with, for example, a former good or best friend (someone you perhaps used to speak often with in high school) can denote that there has been a lot of distance and that you both are almost strangers.
The problem with leaning a language in a classical classroom setting is you're basically learning how to translate from your native language into the language youre trying to speak, instead of just reaching the goal of speaking it as if it were your native language. You end up speaking slower and sometimes have to try and translate in your head mid conversation or think of certain grammar rules to form a sentence. As someone who learned french for a little more than a decade in a classroom setting I can say that it really isn't a good way to learn a language at all and for the vast majority of people will not result in fluency. We really need to rethink how humans acquire language and change how it's taught in school, I think it's super important for everyone to at least speak 2 languages fluently but sadly people think language learning is just like trying to learn math.
Learning a language takes actual effort, and sitting in a classroom isn't really enough. I would say that listening to the way native speakers talk (through working on oral comprehension) is the best.
I have to say though, in school, it's best if a foreign language is mandatory, because it can inspire the kids to actually go out of their way and get to know the culture(-s) associated with the language... like with me and English... I used to be really bad at English so, probably a2 level even after some years like 2 or 3 years of having mandatory English classes in school and I didnt really have an interest in the language, but slowly I watched more and more youtube in english, consumed more media in english and nowadays, basically everything I do digitally is in english and I'm in the range between 86% and 100% in text understanding alone... and this all despite not living in a non-English speaking country, so basically every exposure to english I get is digitally or in english classes... but I still got fluent and I'm proud of it
“She ended each sentence properly, but in Japanese we prefer NOT ending sentences properly “ with every passing day I question my decision in picking Japanese as a language to learn💀
I think this is a really interesting subject because when they're interviews about Japanese people watching foreigners speak Japanese they say that they prefer for them to learn correct and polite in Japanese and avoid using casual or slang style Japanese. But when foreigners learn Japanese from textbooks it said that it's too formal or too polite or too proper and I just think that's it's a funny issue.
I read someone saying once that for some foreign language speakers encountering Japanese for the first time, formality feels cold and casualness feels friendly, so they're more inclined to want to use casual speech around folk rather than formal forms. When in reality, politeness levels in Japanese don't indicate coldness or warmth, it's respectful, but doesn't indicate how close you are to that person. You could be good friends with your boss but still use formal speech around them for instance (tho obvs depends on the people involved but still an example). How true this is I can't say for sure, but it's a thought that helped me break that connection that formality = cold and casualness = warm
@@scarychewinggum I think the reason why formaility seems cold is because you speak that way to people of authority which are usually also people you don't relax around. Meanwhile you speak casual around people you trust and that you feel comfortable around. You're also unlikely to talk about private things to your boss or someone that is in a sense above you. And this distance that you keep towards respectable people feels cold. You can even see it in body language where you would rather snuggle up (get warm) with people you talk casually with rather than a boss who you keep a respectable distance towards.
3:22 I always wondered why I never hear Japanese people using the proper termination of sentences when speaking. I usually just assumed that I was learning a completely different language. This help me a lot! Thank you so much!
8:39 I've noticed that foreigners are also being shy when they speak foreign languages. When I studied abroad many people asked me, "Why are Japanese so shy?" and "You should speak English with more confidence.” so I thought foreigners could speak Japanese confidently and without embarrassment, even if they couldn't speak Japanese well.
Oh, God no. It took me about 5 years to even start speaking english (I'm hispanic) outside of a classroom and I was already conversational. Even now I'm sure I keep repeating mistakes. It's really scary to speak a language you're not native to because you never know when you might accidentally say something wrong or not be able to express what you think. Props to everyone who speaks a foreign language!
Part of speaking and communication also has an emotional element. And when using unfamiliar terms or phrases in any language native or otherwise people tend to get anxious. Part of the reason is the disconnect between what you say and what you want to sound like have different levels of emotion. In your native tongue it's usually easy to tell when someone is happy/sad/angry/ being polite or being kind. In other languages it's impossible to know the differences until you're very familiar with it. Even just the stress on the words or the choice of words can have an impact.
Even though i am not studying japanese i think you do so much for people who want to learn japanese culture and lauguage. Also we need more people like you to benefit our individual communities.
I'd love to see you do a breakdown of the way Inugami Korone from Hololive speaks. She's probably got the most unique sounding Japanese accent/dialect I've ever heard.
@@MxMoondoggie yeah tbh if she put in the effort, she'd had been fluent now..learning japanese in japan for 2 years is way better than learning it away in some other countries for 10 years imo because you actually get plenty of opportunities to practice it on a daily basis.
I’m so glad you explained “mora”. That’s so interesting. I lived in Kagawa-ken for two years. It would be interesting to do a video on the different “dialects” according to what region of Japan you are in. Also maybe about the way people talk in the city and the way people talk more in the country. Is there any other way to learn Japanese by watching TV other than by watching anime? I really struggle to stay interested in anime…….
When I was learning Spanish, mine was very much like Aki's. I could read and write it very well. But I couldn't carry a conversation and I wasn't very confident which made it worse. English is very hard if you're not native. But we aren't nearly as strict in our language as compared to others. That mostly stems from dialect and slang. What made Spanish hard for me, was that Columbian Spanish isn't the same as Spain's Spanish. Like the Columbian word for "cookies" meant "slap" in Spain. So when she, a Columbian, asked her friend, from Spain, if she wanted a cookie. She actually asked "Do you want a slap?". And, if I recall correctly, we were learning Spain's Spanish in our textbook. Being in Florida, we are surrounded by mostly Spanish speakers from all over the place. Namely, Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rican. And tourists. Can't forget about them. And to my surprise, I learned even they don't always understand each other.
I'm a native and you're right, we usually just know the spanish of our regions so when we go to other countries there are a lot of words that mean a different thing and sometimes we don't understand each other.
11:02 i'm currently feeling like this atm, it feels like my progress has been slowing down latetly but if i compare my learnings back then it wouldn't be as close as I am now.
I actually learned a LOT from just this one video, Yuta! Please keep doing these types of videos, it's a great way for us to learn! I also didn't even know you had a second channel :O I'm subscribing right now!
because thats also her lvl. it was all very clear but all the sentences were very basic. to get going in japanese is quite ez but the intermediate step is quite hard then easier again and then god lvl again x)
I would use " メッセージ " ("messēji") instead of "Line", as it's a more general term, which can be used both for Line conversations and SMS or other platforms, etc.
It's nice to know people who are native in other languages also try to directly translate expressions and mannerism. It happens a lot with my friends and classmates who've only studied english at school. They tend to literally translate lots of phrases into english, making it sound weird. IMO, the best way to learn languages is to always supplement lessons or self-study with lots of media consumption and preferably joining a community/community based game in the language you're trying to learn, and study all their phrases and expressions.
I’ve watched a million of those は v が videos on youtube, but they tend to focus on what I find to be comparatively easy, like contrastive は and some other things. The examples you used here in this video were different, and I’d love to get a longer length video on YOUR explanation for は vs が. Looking forward to it!
2:54 I'm from Poland and we actually don't end our sentences when were speaking casually often. We use for example 'więc' at the end which means 'so' but we don't follow it with anything. Or we say 'i no' which is like 'and yeah'. I wonder how it is for other European languages though
Aki I always thought knew Japanese? I was surprised that she wasn't fluent, but I now see why she talks English mostly in all her videos. When I see non Japanese people speaking the language it makes me feel motivated to keep practicing.
Thanks for the tip regarding そして and で, i find myself using そして a lot when constructing sentences in my mind, but I almost never hear it or see it being used by japanese people. Thanks for explaining why and a more natural/casual way to connect sentences !
I think part of why beginner-intermediate Japanese speakers tend to speak in properly ended sentences is because where the language is spoken in such a different order, we tend to get caught up in trying to put each part of speech in the right place. We tend to only think about one sentence at a time, because there are just so many parts to process.
The Line thing reminds me of what we say here in Lebanon. Instead of saying “بعتت رسالة" (I sent a message) we say “بعتت WhatsApp” (I sent a WhatsApp) because it’s what everyone uses to text. We also tend to use a good amount of English and French in our sentences so we either say WhatsApp or message (message is pronounced either in English or French, depending on your education in school)
The part about ending sentences correctly reminded me of something funny I noticed recently when talking with my Japanese friend: of course we did the sentence linking thing all the time, but we would also accidentally switch between registers which is something I was always taught to avoid in class. And since I was taught to avoid it, I tried to keep a casual register throughout our call, but my friend sometimes slipped into using the "desu/masu" forms (I believe he's just a really polite guy, so those come more naturally to him) and I would also start using them and speaking teineigo. And after a few exchanges, we would go back to the casual register.
The thing that Yuta-san said about Japanese people not ending sentences really got me, cuz I speak two western languages (portuguese and english, and am learning spanish) and this has been one of the most frustrating aspects of Japanese when is comes to speaking for me; that in wich i get completely lost at the end of a sentence because I feel this eager sense of incompleteness and I keep searching for ways to conclude each sentence properly and I end up sounding weird or repeating myself.
My Japanese teacher would always point out wrong uses of ha/ga in my writing but I really struggled to understand the differences. I feel just a tiny bit better that Yuta-sensei says it's hard to explain, I still have trouble with it. Subscribing to your second channel, looking forward to learning more.
0:46 I'm glad I watched the all of Monogatari series to catch this heart-melting Tsubasa reference. My problem is I don't know what the last kanji is, otherwise I would be able to read it. "Nandemo wa koto wa nai, iiu ___ dake." I think that's what that says in Romaji.
As somebody who is taking an intermediate conversation class and private lessons with native speakers, this is why I take a lot of Japanese learners with a grain of salt. I definitely have a long way to go, but it takes a native licensed Japanese teacher to decipher whether they are using words correctly and in context. 😕 Overall, it would be interesting to hear her interact with natives without a script. EDIT: conversation class is entirely in Japanese, and teacher speaks very fast. We have to answer on the spot in Japanese of course. Also, I do my own input learning outside of class, but I love being able to tap into professionals for context and vocab.
This is why getting a lot of input from native content in your target language is super important. Hearing and reading the language for thousands of hours trains your mind to recognize patterns and how words are used in different contexts. Input is also important in order to understand how the language is spoken naturally instead of super formally like how you would be taught in a classroom.
@@schmitty8790 yes! I agree that input is important, since 90% of people’s time will be outside of the classroom if they do have classes. I try to watch my Japanese broadcast TV subscription, anime, manga, games, etc without subtitles when I have time and make vocab notes. I also seek out other learners and natives to talk to.
When I listen to Akidearest speak in Japanese, her way of speaking the language sounds very familiar to me in the sense that she sounds exactly like a second-language student of the language (just like me and everyone else in my intermediate Japanese-language classes at an international university located within Japan!) Unfortunately, as students in a second-language classroom, we end up practicing and using our broken Japanese with other second-language students, who also speak in broken Japanese. On the one hand, it is obviously less intimidating to practice a skill with someone at one’s own level. However, it is an unavoidable problem that we end up hearing and learning a lot of mistakes from one another, rather than being fully immersed amongst native-language speakers, whose natural Japanese we are dedicating our lives to learn. I guess the only solution is to try our best to learn the language in as many different ways as possible. I believe that this is exactly what Akidearest is doing, and that’s commendable. 😊
I recently started at a job where I have to speak japanese somewhat regularly. It's a Ramen Shop which is lucky because it means I don't need to have complex conversations or long conversations in Japanese. I can get away with. はい and ありがとう for the most part. 賄いをいただきます or 賄いごちそうさましたした！ as easily repeatable phrases, despite the fact that I can't read Kanji or Write it. 休憩を頂きます? I think. Or was it 休憩行ってきます, I can't remember. But both seem accepted as they know what I meant. Sometimes, like during prep hours or cleaning, I'm alone with coworkers who don't speak any english. And it's quite fun as we both stumble around our conversations. Broken English being exchanged with Broken Japanese. I'm really thankful to have an opportunity to use the language in my every day life. Hopefully this will lead to me becoming comfortable speaking it.
I don't know how long she's been studying Japanese, but if it's only been for a few months, then her Japanese isn't terrible. It's clear that she's just starting, but I think the essence of what she's trying to say could be understood.
11:15 yes Yuta, you have gotten significantly better. At your current level, your task now should be pronunciation. You have almost no more room to improve your grammar and sentence structure (syntax) and plenty of room to improve your pronunciation. That is not to suggest that you cannot improve grammar and syntax, but moreso that you've reached a "best for purpose" level where additional improvement would be a matter of pride, rather than usefulness. If you reach higher levels of grammar and syntax, you alienate the average English speaker. I know this from personal experience. I wasn't even aware of what I was doing until a friend said "sometimes I fell stupid when talking to him" (paraphrased of course). Were I to speak with literature academics, the shoe would be on the other foot, but I could easily converse with other academics on their level. Pronunciation will get you much further than grammar, though syntax is most important until you reach the "average joe" level of grammar and syntax. It's a balancing act and what is most important depends on your mix of skill in all three aspects of language. As far as writing is concerned, there is one level everyone should strive for. Proper punctuation. Advanced punctuation is proper use of ; and : symbols, but I've found few necessary uses in common parlance.
The only thing im surprised about is how often she uses わたし. I would think that is the first thing a beginner-intermediate begins to nix from their conversations in excess
9:16 in this sentence she ended up pronouncing the su in desu. I knpw that this is usually frowned upon. However, it somehow felt appropriate in context after she listed a bunch of particles. Continuing to pronounce each syllable clearly. Am I right in thinking this?
So the whole "don't pronounce the u in desu" is actually part of a much bigger concept. Japanese people actually DO pronounce the u quite a lot, but for specific reasons. It has to do with the sounds AROUND the u. This is called vowel devoicing. You can search "vowel devoicing in Japanese", but you'll have to understand some linguistics concepts to make sense of it. But no, her over pronouncing the u does not sound natural.
In simple terms - pronouncing it fully de-su instead of “dess” is actually seen as cute and a bit child-like. I dont think thats what aki was going for but sometimes you might say de-su because thats how we read when we first learn it and it might be unintentional habit.
To add to what the others have said. Certain romanised spellings of the words aren't an exact fit. For instance ふ is translated as "fu" but it's not said in the same way an english speaker would pronounce it. A lot of the other mora used have similar issues. So to sound more like a native you have to develop your "ear" to hear and speak the words as they are naturally made. Think of when Japanese people say ミルク "miruku" which is "milk" in english. To them it's as close as you can reasonably get to pronouncing it. But any english native can tell the differences between ミルク and milk instantly.
I mean, in English there really isn't a way to grammatically end a sentence improperly, the word choice itself is what makes a sentence polite or impolite. Where Japanese has わかった versus わかりました, English equivalent would be "got it." versus "I understand." In the same vein, you can't always omit pronouns from an English sentence and have it be grammatically valid, if I just said "did the laundry," you can only assume it was I who did the laundry. Unless the previous sentence was a question asking what did.
2:53 In Dutch they often don't end sentences properly in casual conversation. For example they may say: "Mag ik een appel?" = May I an apple? Though technically it should be: "Mag ik een appel hebben?" = May I have an apple? But since the verb is at the end of the sentence, and the meaning of the sentence was already clear from context before the end, the verb just gets skipped altogether.
0:49 They do that too when they speak Spanish XD. I tought Spanish for a while to teenagers and that was one of those thing you have to keep mentioning (and I say mentioning and not correcting cause, yeah, it not grammatically wrong, but it is distracting and unnecessary) to beginners. It's funny, cause it the typical stuff some teachers won't mention because it helps the students when they've just started, but the problem is that they get use to speaking like that, and then it's harder for them to stop.
Yuta先生, please help us out with は vs が! So many places explain these as "topic marker" vs "subject marker", which doesn't help as "topic" and "subject" are pretty much synonyms.
what i get from 10:26 is this は particle : しまじろうは子供のアニメで、日本語は簡単です translation shimajiro is a child anime and japanese is easy. が particle : しまじろうは子供のアニメで、日本語が簡単です translation : shimajiro is a child anime and the japanese is easy.
I remember she said in a video that she learned japanese until level N4 but not until level N5 Maybe this explain much things. Sorry for my English I speak Spanish but im learning English and Japanese that's reason for I speak in this form like unperfected.
Yeah, even when I took some Japanese courses at a community college, unfortunately they kept teaching us super formal Japanese, and when I finally went to Japan some time later, the Japanese people I'd speak with would tell me I do NOT need to speak so formally. Unfortunately though, that's what I was taught. So, I wish these kinds of courses would teach 'street' Japanese to communicate with just ordinary people.
the thing about learning languages is - at least for me after living out of my home country in multiple different places for years - is that even if you're good at cramming and even if you ace the tests in your language school and in the interactions with your teacher in a classroom setting, the moment you are out in the wild and trying to convey spontaneous thoughts that pop into your head and react spontaneously to unprepared for subjects you're being addressed about... you're going to make mistakes... in grammar... in pronunciation... in style... A LOT!!! It's not that you absolutely don't know the correct forms. In fact, oftentimes just minutes after the conversation you will kick yourself, cause you realize the mistake yourself and can't believe you did it wrong yet again. It's just not part of your spontaneous recall skills yet. It's still more passive skill, than active. And guess what, it's completely normal. The only thing that will push your passive skills to active and translate those aced language test into actually applied fluency is talking, talking and more talking, preferably to native speakers. There is no other way around it. The self-study and classroom lessons are only the foundation - without it you won't get anywhere - but only actively using the language will make you develop the actual language skill. Say, you're building a bike yourself, but you never rode one before. Provided all the parts you can build a bike from scratch, and you'll actually know it inside out very well, because you painstakingly built it... but to really learn and get a feel for riding it and to ride it skillfully and securely... well... you gotta hop on an ride. And as you never rode a bike, despite knowing the machine so well, you'll still fall a few times, you will have to keep putting your foot down on the ground for balance, the first few meters you'll be riding wobbly and slow until you eventually get the hang of it. But it will definitely take you quite some time and practise until you ride skillfully enough to take your hands of the handle bar while riding and maybe even lean into curves while doing so. As for Aki, I feel for her. It's not her native, despite moving to Japan she works mostly around other English speakers and her partner albeit native Japanese also is a native English speaker, so I'm sure the temptation is huge to slide back into English when she just wants to bring a point across fast. I'm in a similar situation. I moved to my husband's home country. I learned his native language in uni. I can read the newspaper and books and follow movies and conversations no issue, but my active language skill is admittedly quite poor cause people here accommodate English speakers a lot (they want to make it easy for you) and I got to know my husband speaking English, so it's our primary conversational language (which for us is meeting mid-way because English isn't my native language either). Now you could say, well join another language class. Sure I could, and I did, but it always ends up the same, I ace my tests and classroom situations no issue, just like I did back in uni, but trying to handle real-life situations in a complex culture so different than my own with so many different language modes people speak... it's a whole other beast. So I find myself very fluent in standard everyday life situations I know well (in stores, public transport etc), but god forbid it's a free discussion about an unfamiliar topic. The only thing one can do to improve at that point is to accept your own awkwardness, accept you'll make mistakes you'll later know are mistakes and be upset about, accept that you might occasionally sound 'off' in some expressions you chose, and just hope you'll manage to bring your point across and do better next time. Actually getting on that bike and wobbling around in front of everyone - people who were literally born riding the bike - takes a lot of courage, let me tell you. I think it's amazing Aki is brave enough to put her developing language skill out there. At that level it's already great to be able to express anything other than 'me hungry, me cold'. Awareness for style etc. that all comes later. Wobble around, don't feel you have to be ashamed for it, have fun with it. You will get better only as long as you keep trying.
Yes, when I did my first few dialogues on JVS, it did not seem like I was going to improve. It felt like a brick wall. But, now, after some time, it is clear I am better
For every "UA-camr in Japan" channel out there, there are 1 to 5 people with actual skills on the language helping them with every 手続き so that they can survive in the country and not get yeeted for not understanding how to pay a tax in Japan
10:30 thought the same...my assumption is that using は in that sentence makes it sound like there's another language being used other than Japanese in the anime and she's comparing between them or probably comparing the language with other elements?
Yes. It sounds like a bunch of other languages suddenly have relevance. You`re correct. WA changes topics which means that it often tries to compare stuff. Since she was comparing one time to another in the first sentence, she needed the WA there. You`re right.
3:07 speaking like that as a non-native Japanese speaker is extremely difficult. Japanese sentences are flipped around from how we speak in latin based languages. Keeping each sentence clearly sectioned off is easier to think about. Especially when -te form is used to conjugate verbs
I just learned all the hiragana and about 100 basic words (yeah, I know, total beginner ^-^) I'm loving finding more and more words I understand while watching anime. Right now I'm just using textbooks and audio files / UA-cam to learn, but the more I watch videos like this one, I get scared that I'll mess up my Japanese in the long run. Right now I just want to learn it to understand games/movies, at least up to a point and just for fun. But I'm a little afraid that one day I'll want to improve and actually talk to people, and I won't be able to get rid of the mistakes I'm building up. Watching videos like this one makes me realize that you can do a lot wrong and not even realize it.
the reason ga would be use in that case is to show that shi ma ji rou Japanese is very easy to watch, if wa is used it would be like saying all anime is easy to watch. Which would not be true because some would have easy Japanese and others have complex Japanese.
It's interesting that there were so many things she said that you say sounded unnatural considering Joey is insanely good with language. I would've thought he or a more formal teacher of hers would have told her about that already.
Learn Japanese with Yuta: bit.ly/3i9GBv7
Heyoo, Can you find a way to find Japanese friends online?
@@tarudasu you could try the Line app. From what I hear lots of Japanese use Line.
@@specialk9999 Ahh ok, Thank youu 😁
@@tarudasu no problem
can't find.
Mixing politeness levels is the equivalent of "Greetings sir, sup? I do hope this day finds you well and totes ballin dawg. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance fam."
I think that's a totally alright way of speaking and I wish I spoke like that.
I have always wondered though, I hear natives do that so often?
English schoolkids speak partially like that. Normal English politeness mixed with the "cool" of African American vernacular. my fucking dealer speaks like this
@@AdamOwenBrowning Your fucking dealer? Would that be a prostitute then?
If someone uses the incorrect politeness level it can be overlooked in the most part but sometimes it can make you wince or cringe - but you usually dont say anything unless its super inappropriate like talking to a manager or something. Every politeness level you use adds a level of respect you have for the listener but can also increase the barrier between yourself and the listener. Polite language can be used to show your respect but using it with, for example, a former good or best friend (someone you perhaps used to speak often with in high school) can denote that there has been a lot of distance and that you both are almost strangers.
I always love how he can smoothly transition to promoting his Japanese learning lessons
LMAO YES
and he always highers the volume of his voice when doing it xD
The problem with leaning a language in a classical classroom setting is you're basically learning how to translate from your native language into the language youre trying to speak, instead of just reaching the goal of speaking it as if it were your native language. You end up speaking slower and sometimes have to try and translate in your head mid conversation or think of certain grammar rules to form a sentence. As someone who learned french for a little more than a decade in a classroom setting I can say that it really isn't a good way to learn a language at all and for the vast majority of people will not result in fluency. We really need to rethink how humans acquire language and change how it's taught in school, I think it's super important for everyone to at least speak 2 languages fluently but sadly people think language learning is just like trying to learn math.
learning*
Learning a language takes actual effort, and sitting in a classroom isn't really enough. I would say that listening to the way native speakers talk (through working on oral comprehension) is the best.
To properly learn a language you need to immerse yourself in it.
I have to say though, in school, it's best if a foreign language is mandatory, because it can inspire the kids to actually go out of their way and get to know the culture(-s) associated with the language... like with me and English... I used to be really bad at English so, probably a2 level even after some years like 2 or 3 years of having mandatory English classes in school and I didnt really have an interest in the language, but slowly I watched more and more youtube in english, consumed more media in english and nowadays, basically everything I do digitally is in english and I'm in the range between 86% and 100% in text understanding alone... and this all despite not living in a non-English speaking country, so basically every exposure to english I get is digitally or in english classes... but I still got fluent and I'm proud of it
but to understand another language you have to translate back and forward it's alot of back tracking
“She ended each sentence properly, but in Japanese we prefer NOT ending sentences properly “
with every passing day I question my decision in picking Japanese as a language to learn💀
Same here
ヘッ
凡人...
1% chance for any given rule to have an exception you didn't know about :P
I think this is a really interesting subject because when they're interviews about Japanese people watching foreigners speak Japanese they say that they prefer for them to learn correct and polite in Japanese and avoid using casual or slang style Japanese.
But when foreigners learn Japanese from textbooks it said that it's too formal or too polite or too proper and I just think that's it's a funny issue.
I read someone saying once that for some foreign language speakers encountering Japanese for the first time, formality feels cold and casualness feels friendly, so they're more inclined to want to use casual speech around folk rather than formal forms. When in reality, politeness levels in Japanese don't indicate coldness or warmth, it's respectful, but doesn't indicate how close you are to that person. You could be good friends with your boss but still use formal speech around them for instance (tho obvs depends on the people involved but still an example).
How true this is I can't say for sure, but it's a thought that helped me break that connection that formality = cold and casualness = warm
@@scarychewinggum I think the reason why formaility seems cold is because you speak that way to people of authority which are usually also people you don't relax around. Meanwhile you speak casual around people you trust and that you feel comfortable around. You're also unlikely to talk about private things to your boss or someone that is in a sense above you. And this distance that you keep towards respectable people feels cold. You can even see it in body language where you would rather snuggle up (get warm) with people you talk casually with rather than a boss who you keep a respectable distance towards.
3:22
I always wondered why I never hear Japanese people using the proper termination of sentences when speaking. I usually just assumed that I was learning a completely different language. This help me a lot! Thank you so much!
8:39 I've noticed that foreigners are also being shy when they speak foreign languages. When I studied abroad many people asked me, "Why are Japanese so shy?" and "You should speak English with more confidence.” so I thought foreigners could speak Japanese confidently and without embarrassment, even if they couldn't speak Japanese well.
Oh, God no. It took me about 5 years to even start speaking english (I'm hispanic) outside of a classroom and I was already conversational. Even now I'm sure I keep repeating mistakes. It's really scary to speak a language you're not native to because you never know when you might accidentally say something wrong or not be able to express what you think. Props to everyone who speaks a foreign language!
Part of speaking and communication also has an emotional element. And when using unfamiliar terms or phrases in any language native or otherwise people tend to get anxious. Part of the reason is the disconnect between what you say and what you want to sound like have different levels of emotion.
In your native tongue it's usually easy to tell when someone is happy/sad/angry/ being polite or being kind. In other languages it's impossible to know the differences until you're very familiar with it. Even just the stress on the words or the choice of words can have an impact.
LMAO shots fired ☠️😂
Even though i am not studying japanese i think you do so much for people who want to learn japanese culture and lauguage. Also we need more people like you to benefit our individual communities.
I'd love to see you do a breakdown of the way Inugami Korone from Hololive speaks. She's probably got the most unique sounding Japanese accent/dialect I've ever heard.
Oayo, sore-wa Ko'ne desu
maybe its Akita dialect?🤔
Wait till miko enter
@@Nizashi That's not a dialect, that's a whole 'nother language 😂
@@Nizashi lmao
To be fair Aki learned Japanese VERY fast. I think she did great for the amount of time she has been studying.
I assume she has practice with her coursemates and Joey. Practice is really important
Throw her in Japan she'd adjust real quick to daily Japanese
@@Zohan8910 She's lived in Japan since 2019 and her boyfriend is half Japanese lol. She should have learned at least basic daily conversation.
she's also living in japan though..i used to think that her japanese was very fluent until i saw her vid about learning japanese recently..
@@MxMoondoggie yeah tbh if she put in the effort, she'd had been fluent now..learning japanese in japan for 2 years is way better than learning it away in some other countries for 10 years imo because you actually get plenty of opportunities to practice it on a daily basis.
I’m so glad you explained “mora”. That’s so interesting. I lived in Kagawa-ken for two years. It would be interesting to do a video on the different “dialects” according to what region of Japan you are in. Also maybe about the way people talk in the city and the way people talk more in the country.
Is there any other way to learn Japanese by watching TV other than by watching anime? I really struggle to stay interested in anime…….
Movies? Dramas? TV shows? Maybe even watch game cutscenes
Find a Japanese content which is interesting or familiar to you on UA-cam might be helpful? I’m learning English in this way, recently.
Try Midnight Diner (on Netflix), it's really good.
When I was learning Spanish, mine was very much like Aki's. I could read and write it very well. But I couldn't carry a conversation and I wasn't very confident which made it worse. English is very hard if you're not native. But we aren't nearly as strict in our language as compared to others. That mostly stems from dialect and slang.
What made Spanish hard for me, was that Columbian Spanish isn't the same as Spain's Spanish. Like the Columbian word for "cookies" meant "slap" in Spain. So when she, a Columbian, asked her friend, from Spain, if she wanted a cookie. She actually asked "Do you want a slap?". And, if I recall correctly, we were learning Spain's Spanish in our textbook.
Being in Florida, we are surrounded by mostly Spanish speakers from all over the place. Namely, Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rican. And tourists. Can't forget about them. And to my surprise, I learned even they don't always understand each other.
I'm a native and you're right, we usually just know the spanish of our regions so when we go to other countries there are a lot of words that mean a different thing and sometimes we don't understand each other.
11:02 i'm currently feeling like this atm, it feels like my progress has been slowing down latetly but if i compare my learnings back then it wouldn't be as close as I am now.
me encantan estos nuevos tipos de videos explicando la correcta y natural forma de hablar, PORFAVOR CONTINUA HACIENDO MAS YUTA! gracias!
she’s learning so please be kind and understanding to her in the comments. i’m sure he didn’t make the video to shame her but to help teach.
I actually learned a LOT from just this one video, Yuta! Please keep doing these types of videos, it's a great way for us to learn! I also didn't even know you had a second channel :O I'm subscribing right now!
As someone who’s on the path to N5, I was surprised by the amount of Japanese I could understand in her video. I even realized that one “入学” mistake.
because thats also her lvl. it was all very clear but all the sentences were very basic. to get going in japanese is quite ez but the intermediate step is quite hard then easier again and then god lvl again x)
omg yes!
And you'll get better!
6:46 dogen make a hilarious video recently using this concept. For instance "to return to reality from the metaverse" was "リアる"
I would use " メッセージ " ("messēji") instead of "Line", as it's a more general term, which can be used both for Line conversations and SMS or other platforms, etc.
In Japanese, SMS is pretty much never used. Prior to smartphones and online messaging apps, email was always used so people tended to say メールする
This video was super helpful! I felt like I am at a similar level in Japanese as Aki, so all the tips you gave were so applicable!
It's nice to know people who are native in other languages also try to directly translate expressions and mannerism. It happens a lot with my friends and classmates who've only studied english at school. They tend to literally translate lots of phrases into english, making it sound weird.
IMO, the best way to learn languages is to always supplement lessons or self-study with lots of media consumption and preferably joining a community/community based game in the language you're trying to learn, and study all their phrases and expressions.
I’ve watched a million of those は v が videos on youtube, but they tend to focus on what I find to be comparatively easy, like contrastive は and some other things. The examples you used here in this video were different, and I’d love to get a longer length video on YOUR explanation for は vs が. Looking forward to it!
2:54 I'm from Poland and we actually don't end our sentences when were speaking casually often. We use for example 'więc' at the end which means 'so' but we don't follow it with anything. Or we say 'i no' which is like 'and yeah'. I wonder how it is for other European languages though
This is really interesting Yuta!! I love this style of video.
Although grammar is important obviously, I just enjoy the chance to practice with native speakers. 間違いだらけ日本語を喋るのに楽しい。
1. missing "nyan" at the end of each sentence. 2. lack of tentacles. 3. needs maid/bunny/nurse cosplay to be truly representative
This was super helpful for my own Japanese speaking! I hope Japan opens for tourism so I can finally practise!!
I like your baggy shirt Yuta! Suits you very well alongside the beard :D
grande Yuta! great teacher, greetings from Italy 🙂
Aki I always thought knew Japanese? I was surprised that she wasn't fluent, but I now see why she talks English mostly in all her videos. When I see non Japanese people speaking the language it makes me feel motivated to keep practicing.
Thanks for the tip regarding そして and で, i find myself using そして a lot when constructing sentences in my mind, but I almost never hear it or see it being used by japanese people. Thanks for explaining why and a more natural/casual way to connect sentences !
I think part of why beginner-intermediate Japanese speakers tend to speak in properly ended sentences is because where the language is spoken in such a different order, we tend to get caught up in trying to put each part of speech in the right place. We tend to only think about one sentence at a time, because there are just so many parts to process.
This was an interesting watch, for sure!
Thank you very much!!! This was really helpful
Super helpful! Im going to check out the other videos for sure
The Line thing reminds me of what we say here in Lebanon. Instead of saying “بعتت رسالة" (I sent a message) we say “بعتت WhatsApp” (I sent a WhatsApp) because it’s what everyone uses to text. We also tend to use a good amount of English and French in our sentences so we either say WhatsApp or message (message is pronounced either in English or French, depending on your education in school)
The part about ending sentences correctly reminded me of something funny I noticed recently when talking with my Japanese friend: of course we did the sentence linking thing all the time, but we would also accidentally switch between registers which is something I was always taught to avoid in class. And since I was taught to avoid it, I tried to keep a casual register throughout our call, but my friend sometimes slipped into using the "desu/masu" forms (I believe he's just a really polite guy, so those come more naturally to him) and I would also start using them and speaking teineigo. And after a few exchanges, we would go back to the casual register.
The thing that Yuta-san said about Japanese people not ending sentences really got me, cuz I speak two western languages (portuguese and english, and am learning spanish) and this has been one of the most frustrating aspects of Japanese when is comes to speaking for me; that in wich i get completely lost at the end of a sentence because I feel this eager sense of incompleteness and I keep searching for ways to conclude each sentence properly and I end up sounding weird or repeating myself.
These reviews are golden
You're really going all out with those monogatari references
Very informative. Looking forward to the next video. I'm pretty much at her level, so it's reassuring to hear a native speaker she's pretty decent.
My Japanese teacher would always point out wrong uses of ha/ga in my writing but I really struggled to understand the differences. I feel just a tiny bit better that Yuta-sensei says it's hard to explain, I still have trouble with it. Subscribing to your second channel, looking forward to learning more.
Dunno if it will make you feel better or depressed, but you will always struggle with wa/ga xD
I haven't watched your videos in a while and I actually genuinely thought to myself, "his English has gotten much better."
Very informative breakdown. And your hair looks great.
0:46
I'm glad I watched the all of Monogatari series to catch this heart-melting Tsubasa reference. My problem is I don't know what the last kanji is, otherwise I would be able to read it.
"Nandemo wa koto wa nai, iiu ___ dake."
I think that's what that says in Romaji.
Always love all the monogatari series reference
As somebody who is taking an intermediate conversation class and private lessons with native speakers, this is why I take a lot of Japanese learners with a grain of salt. I definitely have a long way to go, but it takes a native licensed Japanese teacher to decipher whether they are using words correctly and in context. 😕 Overall, it would be interesting to hear her interact with natives without a script.
EDIT: conversation class is entirely in Japanese, and teacher speaks very fast. We have to answer on the spot in Japanese of course.
Also, I do my own input learning outside of class, but I love being able to tap into professionals for context and vocab.
This is why getting a lot of input from native content in your target language is super important. Hearing and reading the language for thousands of hours trains your mind to recognize patterns and how words are used in different contexts. Input is also important in order to understand how the language is spoken naturally instead of super formally like how you would be taught in a classroom.
@@schmitty8790 yes! I agree that input is important, since 90% of people’s time will be outside of the classroom if they do have classes.
I try to watch my Japanese broadcast TV subscription, anime, manga, games, etc without subtitles when I have time and make vocab notes. I also seek out other learners and natives to talk to.
When I listen to Akidearest speak in Japanese, her way of speaking the language sounds very familiar to me in the sense that she sounds exactly like a second-language student of the language (just like me and everyone else in my intermediate Japanese-language classes at an international university located within Japan!) Unfortunately, as students in a second-language classroom, we end up practicing and using our broken Japanese with other second-language students, who also speak in broken Japanese. On the one hand, it is obviously less intimidating to practice a skill with someone at one’s own level. However, it is an unavoidable problem that we end up hearing and learning a lot of mistakes from one another, rather than being fully immersed amongst native-language speakers, whose natural Japanese we are dedicating our lives to learn. I guess the only solution is to try our best to learn the language in as many different ways as possible. I believe that this is exactly what Akidearest is doing, and that’s commendable. 😊
I recently started at a job where I have to speak japanese somewhat regularly. It's a Ramen Shop which is lucky because it means I don't need to have complex conversations or long conversations in Japanese. I can get away with. はい and ありがとう for the most part. 賄いをいただきます or 賄いごちそうさましたした！ as easily repeatable phrases, despite the fact that I can't read Kanji or Write it. 休憩を頂きます? I think. Or was it 休憩行ってきます, I can't remember. But both seem accepted as they know what I meant.
Sometimes, like during prep hours or cleaning, I'm alone with coworkers who don't speak any english. And it's quite fun as we both stumble around our conversations. Broken English being exchanged with Broken Japanese.
I'm really thankful to have an opportunity to use the language in my every day life. Hopefully this will lead to me becoming comfortable speaking it.
I don't know how long she's been studying Japanese, but if it's only been for a few months, then her Japanese isn't terrible.
It's clear that she's just starting, but I think the essence of what she's trying to say could be understood.
She said she attended school for 3 months
@@saralee8996 She said she went to design school though, not language school.
@@Japanimal1992 She studied Japanese at Yokohama Design College
Isn't she in a relationship with Joey ThatAnimeMan? Maybe he taught her.
@@Japanimal1992 she said she was better now than 6 months ago. So at least 6 months. I'm guessing she's been studying around a year.
im surprised that shes only at this level when shes been into anime and dating joey for so long tbh
11:15 yes Yuta, you have gotten significantly better. At your current level, your task now should be pronunciation. You have almost no more room to improve your grammar and sentence structure (syntax) and plenty of room to improve your pronunciation. That is not to suggest that you cannot improve grammar and syntax, but moreso that you've reached a "best for purpose" level where additional improvement would be a matter of pride, rather than usefulness. If you reach higher levels of grammar and syntax, you alienate the average English speaker. I know this from personal experience. I wasn't even aware of what I was doing until a friend said "sometimes I fell stupid when talking to him" (paraphrased of course).
Were I to speak with literature academics, the shoe would be on the other foot, but I could easily converse with other academics on their level.
Pronunciation will get you much further than grammar, though syntax is most important until you reach the "average joe" level of grammar and syntax. It's a balancing act and what is most important depends on your mix of skill in all three aspects of language. As far as writing is concerned, there is one level everyone should strive for. Proper punctuation. Advanced punctuation is proper use of ; and : symbols, but I've found few necessary uses in common parlance.
Nice video 👌
I guess you should make more these type of videos xD
Very educational.
とても教育的な動画です。
You're a legend Yuta ❤ 私は１５年間、日本に住んでいました
0:45 whoah i could actually read that. I guess watching monogatari twice has paid off
That's so useful reference! I learned a lot
The thumbnail is epic! 😆
The only thing im surprised about is how often she uses わたし. I would think that is the first thing a beginner-intermediate begins to nix from their conversations in excess
I'm pretty much an absolute beginner to Japanese and was surprised too.
Ayyy Yuta!
I think she should do some Pitch Accent studies maybe with Dōgen
Definitely lol
9:16 in this sentence she ended up pronouncing the su in desu. I knpw that this is usually frowned upon. However, it somehow felt appropriate in context after she listed a bunch of particles. Continuing to pronounce each syllable clearly. Am I right in thinking this?
So the whole "don't pronounce the u in desu" is actually part of a much bigger concept. Japanese people actually DO pronounce the u quite a lot, but for specific reasons. It has to do with the sounds AROUND the u.
This is called vowel devoicing. You can search "vowel devoicing in Japanese", but you'll have to understand some linguistics concepts to make sense of it.
But no, her over pronouncing the u does not sound natural.
In simple terms - pronouncing it fully de-su instead of “dess” is actually seen as cute and a bit child-like. I dont think thats what aki was going for but sometimes you might say de-su because thats how we read when we first learn it and it might be unintentional habit.
To add to what the others have said.
Certain romanised spellings of the words aren't an exact fit.
For instance ふ is translated as "fu" but it's not said in the same way an english speaker would pronounce it. A lot of the other mora used have similar issues.
So to sound more like a native you have to develop your "ear" to hear and speak the words as they are naturally made.
Think of when Japanese people say ミルク "miruku" which is "milk" in english. To them it's as close as you can reasonably get to pronouncing it.
But any english native can tell the differences between ミルク and milk instantly.
Now that's a name I haven't heard in almost a decade.
I know, Yuta really fell off the map.
@@ShaferHart he's been here the whole time, you just haven't been around.
I mean, in English there really isn't a way to grammatically end a sentence improperly, the word choice itself is what makes a sentence polite or impolite. Where Japanese has わかった versus わかりました, English equivalent would be "got it." versus "I understand."
In the same vein, you can't always omit pronouns from an English sentence and have it be grammatically valid, if I just said "did the laundry," you can only assume it was I who did the laundry. Unless the previous sentence was a question asking what did.
2:53 In Dutch they often don't end sentences properly in casual conversation. For example they may say:
"Mag ik een appel?"
= May I an apple?
Though technically it should be:
"Mag ik een appel hebben?"
= May I have an apple?
But since the verb is at the end of the sentence, and the meaning of the sentence was already clear from context before the end, the verb just gets skipped altogether.
Dan gaat het makkelijker voor ons worden deze taal onder de knie te krijgen, haha
I would bet having a boyfriend who speaks perfect japanese helps quite a lot in mastering the language.
She said in the original video that it was too difficult to speak Japanese with Joey and just preferred English
cool video
great vid yuta
Your English has indeed improved over the years.
0:49 They do that too when they speak Spanish XD. I tought Spanish for a while to teenagers and that was one of those thing you have to keep mentioning (and I say mentioning and not correcting cause, yeah, it not grammatically wrong, but it is distracting and unnecessary) to beginners. It's funny, cause it the typical stuff some teachers won't mention because it helps the students when they've just started, but the problem is that they get use to speaking like that, and then it's harder for them to stop.
I like to watch your videos explaining the way to say things
I cannot find ANYWHERE paid or free to watch Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō. If someone could help that’d be great!
Can anybody help me with what's written at 0:46 ? I mean the bottom part (動畫番號). I can't seem to find anything neither through google or dictionaries.
Good analysis.
"... Akidearest *Speaking* Japanese."
Just realised that there were infinite points in time for Yuta to plugin his Japanese lessons.
Maybe at 1:01 she meant 留学 (ryuugaku) and not 入学 (nyuugaku)? Since it’s not that far phonetically
Yuta先生, please help us out with は vs が! So many places explain these as "topic marker" vs "subject marker", which doesn't help as "topic" and "subject" are pretty much synonyms.
what i get from 10:26 is this
は particle :
しまじろうは子供のアニメで、日本語は簡単です
translation shimajiro is a child anime and japanese is easy.
が particle :
しまじろうは子供のアニメで、日本語が簡単です
translation : shimajiro is a child anime and the japanese is easy.
The best explanation I've seen is that は means "is" and が means "is what is".
"We only say what we said." That is a great English phrase. I'm going to keep that one. 😁
I'm assuming you completely missed the joke.
I remember she said in a video that she learned japanese until level N4 but not until level N5
Maybe this explain much things.
Sorry for my English I speak Spanish but im learning English and Japanese that's reason for I speak in this form like unperfected.
Yeah, even when I took some Japanese courses at a community college, unfortunately they kept teaching us super formal Japanese, and when I finally went to Japan some time later, the Japanese people I'd speak with would tell me I do NOT need to speak so formally. Unfortunately though, that's what I was taught. So, I wish these kinds of courses would teach 'street' Japanese to communicate with just ordinary people.
I really like to learn about japanese from yuta😎👍🏻
Right! That’s what I am learning too.. all by the book..however if I am listening to japanese podcast I notice it is totally different..
the thing about learning languages is - at least for me after living out of my home country in multiple different places for years - is that even if you're good at cramming and even if you ace the tests in your language school and in the interactions with your teacher in a classroom setting, the moment you are out in the wild and trying to convey spontaneous thoughts that pop into your head and react spontaneously to unprepared for subjects you're being addressed about... you're going to make mistakes... in grammar... in pronunciation... in style... A LOT!!!
It's not that you absolutely don't know the correct forms. In fact, oftentimes just minutes after the conversation you will kick yourself, cause you realize the mistake yourself and can't believe you did it wrong yet again. It's just not part of your spontaneous recall skills yet. It's still more passive skill, than active. And guess what, it's completely normal. The only thing that will push your passive skills to active and translate those aced language test into actually applied fluency is talking, talking and more talking, preferably to native speakers. There is no other way around it.
The self-study and classroom lessons are only the foundation - without it you won't get anywhere - but only actively using the language will make you develop the actual language skill. Say, you're building a bike yourself, but you never rode one before. Provided all the parts you can build a bike from scratch, and you'll actually know it inside out very well, because you painstakingly built it... but to really learn and get a feel for riding it and to ride it skillfully and securely... well... you gotta hop on an ride. And as you never rode a bike, despite knowing the machine so well, you'll still fall a few times, you will have to keep putting your foot down on the ground for balance, the first few meters you'll be riding wobbly and slow until you eventually get the hang of it. But it will definitely take you quite some time and practise until you ride skillfully enough to take your hands of the handle bar while riding and maybe even lean into curves while doing so.
As for Aki, I feel for her. It's not her native, despite moving to Japan she works mostly around other English speakers and her partner albeit native Japanese also is a native English speaker, so I'm sure the temptation is huge to slide back into English when she just wants to bring a point across fast. I'm in a similar situation. I moved to my husband's home country. I learned his native language in uni. I can read the newspaper and books and follow movies and conversations no issue, but my active language skill is admittedly quite poor cause people here accommodate English speakers a lot (they want to make it easy for you) and I got to know my husband speaking English, so it's our primary conversational language (which for us is meeting mid-way because English isn't my native language either). Now you could say, well join another language class. Sure I could, and I did, but it always ends up the same, I ace my tests and classroom situations no issue, just like I did back in uni, but trying to handle real-life situations in a complex culture so different than my own with so many different language modes people speak... it's a whole other beast. So I find myself very fluent in standard everyday life situations I know well (in stores, public transport etc), but god forbid it's a free discussion about an unfamiliar topic.
The only thing one can do to improve at that point is to accept your own awkwardness, accept you'll make mistakes you'll later know are mistakes and be upset about, accept that you might occasionally sound 'off' in some expressions you chose, and just hope you'll manage to bring your point across and do better next time. Actually getting on that bike and wobbling around in front of everyone - people who were literally born riding the bike - takes a lot of courage, let me tell you. I think it's amazing Aki is brave enough to put her developing language skill out there. At that level it's already great to be able to express anything other than 'me hungry, me cold'. Awareness for style etc. that all comes later. Wobble around, don't feel you have to be ashamed for it, have fun with it. You will get better only as long as you keep trying.
これは ペン！です。will forever be an inside joke with me and my friends 😂😂
Yuta did you just become Hanekawa for a second at 0:40 ?
Yes, when I did my first few dialogues on JVS, it did not seem like I was going to improve. It felt like a brick wall. But, now, after some time, it is clear I am better
For every "UA-camr in Japan" channel out there, there are 1 to 5 people with actual skills on the language helping them with every 手続き so that they can survive in the country and not get yeeted for not understanding how to pay a tax in Japan
10:30 thought the same...my assumption is that using は in that sentence makes it sound like there's another language being used other than Japanese in the anime and she's comparing between them or probably comparing the language with other elements?
Yes. It sounds like a bunch of other languages suddenly have relevance. You`re correct. WA changes topics which means that it often tries to compare stuff. Since she was comparing one time to another in the first sentence, she needed the WA there. You`re right.
Yuta improving his thumbnail game I see.
3:07 speaking like that as a non-native Japanese speaker is extremely difficult. Japanese sentences are flipped around from how we speak in latin based languages. Keeping each sentence clearly sectioned off is easier to think about. Especially when -te form is used to conjugate verbs
Throughout the video I was expecting you to say the words but only at the end they showed up... bamboozled again haha
I just learned all the hiragana and about 100 basic words (yeah, I know, total beginner ^-^) I'm loving finding more and more words I understand while watching anime. Right now I'm just using textbooks and audio files / UA-cam to learn, but the more I watch videos like this one, I get scared that I'll mess up my Japanese in the long run. Right now I just want to learn it to understand games/movies, at least up to a point and just for fun. But I'm a little afraid that one day I'll want to improve and actually talk to people, and I won't be able to get rid of the mistakes I'm building up. Watching videos like this one makes me realize that you can do a lot wrong and not even realize it.
the reason ga would be use in that case is to show that shi ma ji rou Japanese is very easy to watch, if wa is used it would be like saying all anime is easy to watch. Which would not be true because some would have easy Japanese and others have complex Japanese.
It's interesting that there were so many things she said that you say sounded unnatural considering Joey is insanely good with language. I would've thought he or a more formal teacher of hers would have told her about that already.
Joey and Aki most likely does not speak Japanese to each other.
I love aki
"Do it again... but... with... MORE - INTENSITY!"
@5:25 my Japanese teacher would use the example of くうそう vs くそう.
5:20 raiden shogun, zhongli and venti : M-mora?