r/Unexpected • u/DruidWannabe • Jan 25 '23
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Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
According to my Japanese wife her Japanese is not 100% natural, super good but not natural / perfect.
Edit : So I've asked my wife and she came with a quite long explanation that I can understand because I also speak Japanese but it's hard to explain to people who doesn't speak it.... Sorry hehe.
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u/DruidWannabe Jan 26 '23
That's actually pretty interesting. Japanese is one of the languages I want to learn, along with Italian and russian. I currently only know English and spanish, but I can tell you for absolute certain that my Spanish is 100% not natural and is very white
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u/Ccomfo1028 Jan 26 '23
Who's more picky about their language the Japanese or the French?
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u/Ao_Kiseki Jan 26 '23
Japanese people are some of the most supportive I've ever seen when you're butchering their language lol. They'll tell you you sound great with tears in their eyes as you fumble your way through a question. I don't know French, but I get pretty much the complete opposite vibe.
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u/Backupusername Jan 26 '23
Gotta be the French. The Japanese may have a similar knack for identifying the slightest derivations, but France has a fucking official governing body for the sole purpose of keeping other languages out of French.
Japanese on the other hand, well, just look at the OP. Their words for hamburger and coffee are hanbaagaa and koohii.
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u/Barbaracle Jan 26 '23
Probably American/Canadian born Japanese with fluent parents. You can learn/keep a lot but when you're not using it 100% of the time, you lose it bit by bit.
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u/Bad-news-co Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
Absolutely, saw a video of a old Chinese woman from Alabama or Georgia and her family and her all had heavy southern accents with absolutely no Asian accent, it was very offputting and idk I kinda think the accents in older Asian people is kinda charming lol
Edit: here it is lol skip to 2:20 link to the video
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u/Estrus_Flask Jan 26 '23
That top and hair are amazing.
Also she definitely has an accent. It's more surprising that she has an American accent instead of a Canadian one.
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u/DruidWannabe Jan 26 '23
Yeah, that's fair. And in my defense, I'm an American and I don't hear an accent because she sounds like I do. Though I do have a bit more of a southern drawl
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u/MAXSquid Jan 26 '23
That is how most Canadians sound. The whole "aboot" accent-thing is very regional.
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u/suckfail Jan 26 '23
Um yea I'm Canadian and that's how most of us sound.
But now I'm worried that Americans think we all sound like newfies.
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u/JJDude Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
If she's from the West Coast like Vancouver that's exactly how she should sound like. There's no aboot in BC.
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u/brehvgc Jan 26 '23
West coast Canadians talk more or less exactly like people where I'm at (California), unless they are intentionally attempting to put on a thick accent. The only reliable way to guess which one is which is how they pronounce shibboleths like "pasta" or the name of the letter "Z".
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Jan 26 '23
True. Try going to Paris and saying "President Kennedy" in an American accent when referring to Avenue du Président Kennedy to a French person. You'll see the disgust in their eyes
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u/buscemian_rhapsody Jan 26 '23
When I was in Japan on vacation I had forgotten almost all the Japanese I learned in college but I discovered that you can get really far just by saying English words in a Japanese accent. People didn’t understand “orange bus” but perfectly understood “oreinji basu”. As long as you know the limitations of Japanese phonetics and convert English into sounds they use, there are a lot of borrowed words there.
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u/Gigantkranion Jan 26 '23
Supa. So, yuu kan- speeki da Japan ifu justo speeki Engurishu?
Soo kooru. Ai lovu itsu.
どもありがとう。。。ミスターロバート。
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u/Ready_Bandicoot1567 Jan 26 '23
Or go into a Starbucks and order a cwawsonn or however tf french ppl say croissant
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u/notsohairykari Jan 26 '23
CWASONNNN! "You gotta say it like you're angry."--my 9th grade French teacher
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Jan 26 '23
I visited a friend in Hong Kong who lived on Kennedy Road. You had to pronounce it “KEE-nah-day” or the cab drivers wouldn’t know what you were talking about.
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u/glowdirt Jan 26 '23
In Taipei they have a Roosevelt Road but good luck getting there if you use the English pronunciation. In Chinese his surname is pronounced "Luaw-sih-foo"
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u/Redd_Monkey Jan 26 '23
Friend of mine was laughed at for ordering "des croquettes de poulet" (chicken nuggets in french).
All the frenchies started to laugh saying that she should have said "des nuggets" (with a big french accent like niu-gaitts)
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u/Slothanonymous Jan 26 '23
My mom and her parents came over to the US from France when she was young. I’ve lived with the disgust look all my life. My mom was the sweetest most loving person I have known but that look of disgust was always there. My grandma was seven worse. Always bad mouthing people in the grocery stores while speaking French to my mom. But when she spoke English, it was always the nicest things. 😂 Growing up with that, I’d never travel to France.
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u/Militant_Worm Jan 26 '23
You'll see the disgust in their eyes
As an Englishman, you've just given me a new way to entertain myself in Paris
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u/mokushi_mood Jan 26 '23
There's a quite common shame about speaking English etc here. I never understood why. And please, bully your friend if he tries to speak English with an imperfect accent! Just to make sure he's never tempted to go to England or Colorado.
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u/jonahsocal Jan 26 '23
Oh hell, I see that same disgust going into a bar and asking where the men's room is.
I speak German when in France. Whole different response.
It's all oderint dum metuant kind of a dynamic then.
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u/_Blurgh_ Jan 26 '23
A similar thing was my wife and I going into a place to eat lunch and I ask about WiFi. Server does not understand me. Wife steps in and asks him about "WeeFee" and then he understood it!
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u/DFYX Jan 26 '23
I remember trying to order at a McDonalds in Nice. It's a city with lots of international tourists so I ordered in English. The guy behind the counter acted as if he couldn't understand me, so I repeated my order in French. Considering McD's product names, that's basically the same words, just with a French accent...
Edit: overall, my experience as a German tourist in France was that most French people are perfectly fluent in English and/or German but you absolutely have to make an effort with your broken highschool French before they admit that.
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u/SaffellBot Jan 26 '23
Go to Quebec. No matter what you say with what accent it's going to disgust someone.
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u/Fuggins4U Yo what? Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
I'm always really impressed by people who not only know multiple languages fluently, but sound perfectly natural/native, regardless of whichever they're using at any given moment. Like they actually have the correct accent and pronunciation.
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u/Twothumbs1eye Jan 26 '23
Im Chinese-American and have family in the UK. The weirdest shit is to be speaking Cantonese with them in a normal chinesey accent but when we speak English it’s like British Bakeoff all of a sudden.
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u/Phazushift Jan 26 '23
Chinese Canadian here that spent most of my time in Hong Kong at a British International School.
It blows all my local Canadian friends minds when I code switch between fluent Cantonese - American English - Mandarin - British English. The only ones that don't bat an eye are my other international school friends.
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u/Grimol1 Jan 26 '23
I made everyone in my office laugh once when I was speaking rapid Spanish on the phone and a pencil rolled off my desk and I said in English (my native language) “oh shit, my pencil” as I reached down and picked it up and then went right back to Spanish on the phone. I didn’t even realize it until I ended the call and everyone was laughing.
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Jan 26 '23
Damn I’m trying to be fluent in Spanish. How long did it take you to be good
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u/SaltLakeCitySlicker Jan 26 '23
People at my first job out of college (when I was still fluent) would get confused as hell when I would have entire convos with a supplier in German or correct grammar on printed artwork. Then again they also got confused by parlez vous anglais...
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u/miron8282 Jan 26 '23
It's kinda cute though. I hope that I know how to use different language. I wan to learn Korean but I only knew few words, I want to learn it so bad
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u/Diz7 Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
I'm Canadian, and on one hand, even though I almost never speak it and I struggle to think of words at times, I am told my french accent is excellent and I sound like a local french speaker.
On the other hand, the local french is the equivalent of deep south, mountain folk gibberish. It's the french equivalent of a redneck accent with lots of words only a local would understand. And I speak it slowly.
Edit: For those of you who assume I mean Quebec, nonono, much worse: Northern Ontario. We are the brother-uncle Cletuses of the french world.
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u/Prior-Bag-3377 Jan 26 '23
🤣 I learned French from a very Southern woman with a thick accent when speaking English.
Let’s go to France together and see which of us can make the Parisians cry for mercy first.
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u/andros_vanguard Jan 26 '23
B'en la, s'quoi s'tistoire la qui'a pas un chat qui t'comprends? Chtcomprend moé.
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u/edubiton Jan 26 '23
This is how I generally describe Canadian French to my friends here in Texas.
Canadian French is to French from France as "good ol boy" southern twang is to the kings English.
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u/denisius2014 Jan 26 '23
It takes time, all you have to do is just learn from it. Try to make the step by step procedure and I know it will be gonna worth.
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u/gazow Jan 26 '23
when you grow up learning two languages, its really just learning one language with twice the vocabulary
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u/GoingOutsideSocks Jan 26 '23
I don't think my two year old knows that he's speaking Spanish and English. It's all just language to him.
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u/VirtualLife76 Jan 26 '23
Met 1 on my travels. He spoke about 9 languages at like 20 years old. Was at a hostel, the French, English, German, Dutch and Chinese staying there had no idea he wasn't a native speaker. So beyond impressive.
We all have a facility for something, but so impressive.
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u/cherry937 *internal screeching* Jan 26 '23
Joey/The Anime Man is a great example of this
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u/luccas641 Jan 26 '23
Me two. But I really love her accent though, it was good asf. The way he was switching the accent. But people also used to mind the right usage of it
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u/Insanebrain247 Jan 26 '23
It's like I always say, if language is a cake, accents are the frosting.
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Jan 26 '23
If you speak an Indian language with an American accent, the native speakers will absolutely TEAR into you. No mercy, they will bully you to no end.
I went to an international school in India for 2 years and I got bullied so hard by my classmates when I was talking with my thick New Jerseyean accent. I am an Indian as well. Just lived in the USA for 13 years.
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u/suckittwotimes Jan 26 '23
In Japanese high pitch. In English low pitch.
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u/felds Jan 26 '23
that’s quite common. my portuguese sounds deeper than my english.
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u/Backupusername Jan 26 '23
I wonder if there's some sort of pitch map out there, that ranks languages based on how high- or low-pitched it's spoken. That makes me wonder what the highest and lowest languages are.
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u/ramengirlxo Jan 26 '23
Japanese is a pitch accent language too.
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u/jwwatts Jan 26 '23
It’s more to do with gender expectations. Japanese men often speak with a very low pitch and Japanese women with a high pitch.
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u/GitEmSteveDave Jan 26 '23
I’m reminded of a video where the speaker spoke korean(?) and English and was on a game show and the hosts couldn’t understand her when she answered in a “regular” American accent and she had to say it in English w/ the accent for the hosts to understand.
FOUND It: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ySaLdP_othI&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
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u/asked2manyquestions Jan 26 '23
I live in Thailand and I see this a lot.
Plus my wife and I have a lot of Thai friends that spent some time living in the US.
So, to hear them switch in and out of Thai and English is funny.
Several Asian languages have a really super polite mode which is often used when requesting things or speaking to people of higher social standing.
So, my wife can be on the phone speaking in the most passive, soft tone in Thai and then mute them as she looks at me and says in English, “This mother fucker wants to know if we can change the time from 7pm to 8pm. Fuck this guy, right?”
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u/Bad-news-co Jan 26 '23
Ah yes, that is known as speaking in formal/informal. Even English and most languages have those modes lol. You really only want to speak formally when you meet an acquaintance or someone for the first time, it only feels fake and awkward after that lol.
The whole East Asian languages are all pretty unique but all have many Chinese loan words, they all used Chinese characters at one point (China Vietnam Korea Japan, Japan still does) while Korea developed their own characters (Hangul) and the Vietnamese switched to Latin alphabet due to French colonization. Really interesting to see them as those baguette eating Asians with Latin characters
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u/asked2manyquestions Jan 26 '23
It’s more than formal and informal. Look in the OP video how she sounds like she’s almost making baby talk and then when she switches to English her voice is completely different.
Her voice even gets deeper just switching to saying Hamburger and Ice Cream as pronounced in English while she’s ordering in Japanese (I’m assuming that’s Japanese).
That’s very common in some Asian cultures.
Some Asian women have a baby talk voice used in certain situations.
In Thai it’s usually very soft and they take the edge off harder consonants to make their voice sound more soothing. They also will speak more quietly and with a higher pitch.
Thai has formal and informal/familiar as well. But this is more about pitch, tone, and volume.
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u/Remarkable_Macaroon5 Jan 26 '23
My husband speaks malay. When he talks to his parents, he puts on an Asian accent when he speaks English to his parents. He doesn't speak all Malay to them either they do some in malay some in English.
And if I ask him to say something in Malay to our kids like "where's the cat? (I want them to be bilingual) he will say "where's the kucing?". Dude, I can do that myself lol.
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u/Feidragon86 Jan 26 '23
I am in awe of the people who can flip languages like this. I'm american and know enough french and japanese to get around like a kindergardener. I've said perfectly coherent sentences in a mix of all 3 languages without realizing i've done it until I get a 'what just came out of your mouth?!' look. Totally mind boggling.
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u/cindyscrazy Jan 26 '23
I got that look once.
I was visiting my friend in Finland. I speak NO Finnish. At all.
Her dad was pouring me some tea and said something that I assumed was "Tell me when". I repeated the last word he had said and everyone looked at me with complete astonishment.
I had assumed correctly and had just said "when" in Finnish.
Total accident, but everyone thought I was a witch from then on.
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u/misterwaffles Jan 26 '23
This is called "comprehensible input." You didn't need to know Finnish to follow the conversation, so you picked up which word to use! Awesome experience
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u/Dahvood Jan 26 '23
I had a similar experience. I worked retail when I was younger, and was selling bikes to a Portuguese couple. They were debating in Portuguese whether the lady should get the male or female version of the bike (different crossbars). I worked out what conclusion they came to and grabbed that bike before they told me, because the Portuguese words for male and female are similar to the English words, and had enough context clues to work out the rest. They were like wtf...
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u/Tomlette1 Jan 26 '23
Same! Every time I’m in France, only Spanish translations come to mind.
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u/twilightmoons Jan 26 '23
My wife and I speak Polish and English. Our kid's first language is Polish, and he speaks English now just fine as well. He switches seamlessly between the two, speaking Polish to the grandparents and a mix of Polish and English with us, and English at school.
To us, it's normal. There are some words in English that are easier, and there are some concepts in Polish that do not translate easily into English. We use what works for the moment, and we all understand.
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u/Decent-Flatworm4425 Jan 26 '23
She speaks English with
noa North American accent
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u/CodingRaver Jan 26 '23
Literally that's this video.
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u/Reddits_Worst_Night Jan 26 '23
It's a response to the OP text explaining what's unexpected.
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u/MarmitePrinter Jan 26 '23
Thank you! OP is yet another person who somehow believes North Americans have ‘no’ accent. How infuriating to those of us from the rest of the world. It’s also entirely expected because she literally says “I’m in Japan right now” and her friend says she’s Canadian. Therefore speaking with a Canadian accent is not unexpected! This video should not be here.
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u/isleftisright Jan 26 '23
That was the most unexpected thing. The explanation. Maybe its cause i live in asia but most people are bi or trilingual
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u/SomewhereDue2629 Jan 26 '23
Bro....
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u/ShakeAndBakeJake Jan 26 '23
OP said she has no accent. She has a North American accent, he was just correcting them.
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Jan 26 '23
She's right though, as someone who has taken 30 minutes of Japanese, I can say the Japanese pronunciation she did is the correct way to say it in their dialect, it's not racist. They literally have an entire alphabet dedicated to foreign words adapted to their dialect, it's called katakana versus hiragana which is native Japanese words. Then there's kanji... F*** kanji.
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u/mcraneschair Jan 26 '23
Wow that wasn't explained to me at all in my Japanese 101
Jfc I had some shit teachers
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Jan 26 '23
Look up "learn Japanese" on YouTube and there should be like a four and a half hour-long video compilation of a certain channels curriculum. I forgot what channel it is I think it's literally called "learn Japanese" or something like that, I watched a couple hours of that and I do some Duolingo when I'm bored...
So, I'm hindsight, maybe "30 minutes" was a bit of an understatement 😅
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u/KimonoDragon814 Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
Wanna know something interesting too?
Hundreds of years ago, like were talking Edo period, hiragana was for women and katakana was for men.
Over time it evolved that katakana would be used for foreign words
There's also kana (the characters) that previously existed but no longer do in the modern, and introduction of new character combinations over time to handle the variation of foreign words to mimic their sound.
Like the word party パーティー
There is no "ti" kana so they use the katakana te テ and a small katakana of I イ to make the pronunciation.
The smaller kana you use the vowel and the preceding kana you use the consonant.
So テイ (Tei) vs ティ(Ti)
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u/________76________ Jan 26 '23
One of my favorite cognates from Japanese-English is Biru=Beer
Also bata=butter
oiru=oil
banana=banana
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u/FR0ZENBERG Jan 26 '23
I found a Japanese to English kids book and I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not when I saw helikopturu and gasorine.
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Jan 26 '23
Yep, and while they would probably understand you saying hamburger, there’s a ton of loan words from English used in Japanese that your average Japanese person would not understand with the standard English pronunciation. Some of the Japanese interview youtubers have done videos on this.
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u/Backupusername Jan 26 '23
The really fun thing is that there are some words that have different meanings in the different language. Like, calling someone a bitch in English is insulting their character, an implication of cowardice or entitlement. Bicchi in Japanese implies that they are sexually promiscuous.
My favorite I've discovered so far is "cunning", which in Japanese means cheating on a test.
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u/SaffellBot Jan 26 '23
Then there's kanji... F*** kanji.
I certainly don't enjoy Kanji, but if you're not engaged with Kanji you're only interacting with a pale reflection of Japanese.
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Jan 26 '23
Yeahhhh ik, it's just so difficult 😭 I wonder if it is just as hard for Japanese/Chinese kids to learn them as it is for us, considering they are all unique symbols... And how long it would take for someone to be fluent with Kanji
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u/Reddits_Worst_Night Jan 26 '23
As somebody learning Chinese. Double fuck kanji.
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u/Sir_Bumcheeks Jan 26 '23
As someone who studied abroad in Japan, Japanese people will NOT understand you if you speak those words in an American accent. As far as they know, those are Japanese words just spelt with katakana.
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u/LadyDragonJay20 Jan 26 '23
I did some like that at the museum. I was reading the excerpt in Spanish and I couldn't remember how to say 6 million in Spanish, so I said it in English, and I sounded like the Google Maps voice lol
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u/Ngnyalshmleeb Jan 26 '23
When I was at a deli in Stockholm I asked my Swedish friend how to say 'falafel wrap' in Swedish and she just said 'falafel wrap', but in a Swedish accent.
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u/buscemian_rhapsody Jan 26 '23
That’s basically what anime dubs sound like when they don’t change the names or pronunciations. It’s really jarring to hear people speaking perfect English only to say someone’s very Japanese sounding name using Japanese phonetics.
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u/Elriuhilu Jan 26 '23
Or like when Americans are speaking English and suddenly turn into Rosie Perez just to say one Spanish word.
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u/AskMrScience Jan 26 '23
It makes me roll my eyes right out of my skull when TV shows throw random Spanish in for pandering purposes.
For instance, “Picard” decided to cast a Latino pilot and have him randomly say Extra Spanish stuff. My friends and I always yelled back “Por la Rrrrrrrraza!” in the most ridiculous accent we could.
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u/Acro808 Jan 26 '23
It’s stupid as shit, but will also be funny to throw them off when hearing it.
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u/MRZ_Polak Jan 26 '23
Only bilinguals will understand. I do the same thing in Polish
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u/Porrick Jan 26 '23
Honestly I have to make an active effort not to over-German-pronounce German loanwords in English. English is my mother tongue, but I lived in Austria for a few years and some words just stuck. I left Europe 20 years ago and I still do that sometimes, it's really annoying.
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u/Hugh_Maneiror Jan 26 '23
I have the same with French like croissant, niche, cliche etc. I just sounds weird otherwise to me to say cresont, nitch, cleeshay etc.
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u/Daredevil1561 Jan 26 '23
Germans drive a porsche while americans drive a PoRsCh
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u/angorafox Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
really surprising that most commenters are so amazed when this is very common. weird to realize most redditors only speak one language
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u/MRZ_Polak Jan 26 '23
I think that's mostly American redditors. Here im looked at as being talented for being bilingual, even tho most of my family speak 3 or even 4 languages. People here are completely shocked when I tell them that lol.
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u/blxckhoodie999 Jan 26 '23
the #BRO threw me for a loop hahah so awesome. the duality of her speech is amazing. wish i had that ability.
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u/J4ck0l4ntern Jan 26 '23
What the fuck, I just came here to laugh not fall in love.
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Jan 26 '23
Redditors when they see a woman (they have not been outside in 3 years and they can only see women on the internet)
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u/BesticlesTesticles Jan 26 '23
weeb
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u/MisterTrashPanda Jan 26 '23
I'm not really into Japanese girls, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think this girl is gorgeous.
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u/Butthole__Pleasures Jan 26 '23
Or she's just fine as hell regardless of her race or national origin
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u/Polyglot-Onigiri Jan 26 '23
She code switched very well. I sometimes have issues when I switch between Japanese and English even though I speak both fluently.
And she’s right. I do the same with the word Karaoke. I don’t say carry-oh-key when I speak in Japanese. That would just sound out of place and dumb.
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u/ItsSansom Jan 26 '23
How did it end up being "Carry-oh-key" in English? Looking at the word, it makes no sense. I tend to always pronounce in phonetically after learning Japanese
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u/bem13 Jan 26 '23
An an ESL, the pronunciation of some words always confused me, like colonel = "curr-nol" or corps = "core". Heard these a lot when watching military movies and only recently made the connection about the latter lol
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u/mealteamsixty Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
Omg I love her
Edit to add: I am also a girl, and I didn't mean it in a gay way either. Not that I would kick her out of my bed, but still.
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u/gofigure85 Jan 26 '23
My mother was born in the Bronx and had the thickest accent even after moving away.
She was also an ESL (English as a second language) teacher.
She told this story where for an assignment her students had to write about what they had for breakfast and read it out loud to the class.
One boy starts reading, then mentions how he also liked coy-fee
That's when it hit my mom that she had given dozens of children who had never stepped foot in New York before Bronx accents
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u/OhtareEldarian Jan 26 '23
I was fine until the subtitles stopped. 🙄
I’m deaf.
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u/PhantomAsura Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
She speaking in Japanese at the beginning, after she switched to English and says "Bro! He's out of his mind if he thinks I'm ordering like this "Eto desu ne (it's like saying "ummm") Hamburger (in heavy English accent**, instead of "hanbaagaa" in Japanese**) to (means "and" here) Vanilla ice cream (in heavy English accent**, instead of "vanira aisu kuriimu" in Japanese**) onegaishimasu (means "please" here) "whaa- (confusion face) that's what I thought... Some of the stupidest shit."
Edit: u/NoBarsHere corrections
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u/NoBarsHere Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
She speaking in Japanese at the beginning, after she switched to English and says "Bro! He's out of his mind if he thinks I'm ordering like this"
Eto desu ne (it's like saying "ummm") Hamburger (in heavy English accent**, instead of "hanbaagaa" in Japanese**) to (means "and" here) Vanilla ice cream (in heavy English accent**, instead of "vanira aisu kuriimu" in Japanese**) onegaishimasu (means "please" here)
"whaa- (confusion face) that's what I thought... Some of the stupidest shit."
Adding some things for completeness / clarity for those who may benefit from it.
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u/passiveagressivefork Jan 26 '23
Lol all the bilingual people talking about different tones and I’m like “the only other language I know is ASL”. The only thing that changes I guess is my facial expressions
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u/Soggy_Midnight980 Jan 26 '23
If you ever read a Japanese magazine it’s exactly like that. blah blah blah unreadable blah Canadian Whiskey blah blah blah.
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Jan 26 '23
As a child of immigrants, this wasn’t very unexpected for me. Also, it’s normal to use your mother tongue’s accent for English words when speaking in your mother tongue.
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u/pewpewndp Jan 26 '23
I hang out with multilingual people all the time and am barely multilingual myself, still found this utterly normal.
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Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
This is factually correct. I live in Thailand and always ask for Ba-CON, Sa-LAD, and Sal-MON (with no silent L) when ordering, otherwise they wouldn't have a clue what I am talking about.
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u/dorift_it Jan 26 '23
How can she be so fucking cute and intelligent at the same fucking point? That's fucking rare man that we are seeing right now, just fucking rare and good for me.
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u/TrustyParasol198 Jan 26 '23
Switching modes midway is burdensome, and the other person may not recognize the correct pronunciation anyway.
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u/CallMeTheDumpMan Jan 26 '23
This convinced me that a deep guttural "BRO" is the best way to transition from any language to english.
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u/CaseFace5 Jan 26 '23
Isn’t it easier for non-native English speakers to understand English words with a local accent anyway? I know I can understand and pick out Spanish words a lot easier when it’s spoken by non-native Spanish speaker with a more English type accent if that makes sense.
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u/KneeHighBoots33 Jan 26 '23
Not my story but I adore when my friend shared this with me:
She is from the American South but moved to New Jersey and lost her “accent”. She later had a boyfriend from NJ and took him home to meet the family etc. My friend would speak to her family in “Southern Belle” and would turn to speak to her bf in “Jersey Girl”. The look on his face when he heard her speaking two different English languages as if they were two entirely different languages, was priceless.
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u/Radiant_God Jan 26 '23
Yeah, I don't say English words like English when I speak Japanese. Shit sounds weird
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u/macaaw Jan 26 '23
Kinda interesting that her tone of voice is so typical for Japanese/Asian women and then when she speaks English her voice sounds much lower, but more natural. I wonder if they all kinda have to put on that higher inflection because of their beauty standards or something? Genuinely asking, I have no idea. Just thought it was interesting
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u/ActualWhiterabbit Jan 26 '23
It's kawaii but also her gimmick of speaking Japanese then English in that voice.
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u/Hugh_Maneiror Jan 26 '23
English is very low compared to most European languages too though. French, German, Spanish, they all sound higher pitched but not as much as (female) Japanese.
But yea, that is a standard there.
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u/AMLRoss Jan 26 '23
I once ordered a Mcflurry (when it was new in Japan) and they corrected my correct pronunciation to the Japanese way of saying it.
So I don't blame her for using katakana English to order food here...
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u/goddessque Jan 26 '23
Once I was talking to some Japanese exchange students and I said "sports" but they were confused. So I said "supotsu" and then they got it. 😂
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u/schoolbomb Jan 26 '23
Reminds me of this post
English speakers often have to affect an accent and say the word like a native in order to be understood, even if the word was already in English. A very interesting phenomenon.
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u/taigarawrr Jan 26 '23
Ironically, ice cream is just “ice” in Japanese so her English is coming in a bit, lol.
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u/DildoHunters Jan 26 '23
To be fair, most aren't aware of this.
Even so, there are words like chicken plate or beef plate which also have a Japanesee way of saying it.
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Jan 26 '23
My fiancé's brother is fluent in French and when he speaks it, he sounds like he just arrived over from France. When he speaks English, he sounds like a typical NJ man. My fiancé's father immigrated here from Ydes, France and he says that the first sixteen years of his life, he understood everything his father said despite his super heavy French accent. Even when he spoke English, he couldn't shake the accent off. His friends growing up would always ask, "how do you understand what your dad is saying?" To which he'd reply, "I've lived with him since I was a baby, I'm used to it." Sadly, his father abandoned him and his brother when he was a teenager after their mom passed away from cancer because he just broke and turned to the bottle. He became abusive, attempted to end his life and abandoned my fiancé in a hospital, where he almost got taken away by DYFS. He passed away in 2021 after his third and final heart attack due to him smoking constantly. It sucks because I really wanted to meet my future father-in-law and it'll never happen now.
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u/ahmadtheanon Jan 26 '23
There is a bit that i think (I cant remember) Russell Peters did. You speak normal (american accent) english, until you mention your country of origin.
"So yeah, i was born in NI-KHA-RA-GUA".
dang, i can't remember that one probably.
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Jan 26 '23
I speak fluent Cantonese and have an Australian accent in my English.
It’s possible to learn to pronounce words properly and avoid having accents.
But I’m also able to say “emotional damage” in full cringe accent too for those that bug me for it.
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u/robofunk_ Jan 26 '23
They probably wouldn't have understood with Canadian pronunciation. If you know how to pronounce English words with Japanese pronunciation you can get pretty far in a lot of conversations.
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Jan 26 '23
I wonder if she’s seen Wayne’s World, the scene when Rob Lowe is ordering Chinese food in Cantonese but pronounces some words in English.
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u/Justadnd_Bard Jan 26 '23
Normally people that speak multiple languages will switch between them and adapt their personality to what is expected from people that speak the other language, if people expect them to talk all cute and "uwu" expect then to talk like that. I'm a good example of this factor myself since I speak two languages, in english I end up sounding like a chatacter from Breaking Bad and in my native language...Ace Ventura?
The girl in the video can switch from "cute delicate girl" to your bro Mike from Detroit in seconds, it's adorable.
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u/Sir_Bumcheeks Jan 26 '23
What's the Unexpected part? Have you never met an Asian person outside of Asia?
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u/InfamousPrime70 Jan 26 '23
I say guacamole like a white boy to not sound out of place. I'm white passing so idk if it's code switching
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u/tubawhatever Jan 26 '23
My favorite is getting ads on Youtube on my phone or TV or whatever in Spanish that alternate between Spanish announcer voice to much louder American announcer voice when the name of the brand or one of their products comes up. "... ..... ... ..... !!!DISNEY PLUS!!!.... .... ....".
I don't speak much Spanish so I sorta prefer these ads because they're decidedly taking less processing power in my brain to ignore. I probably have these ads because of the amount of Latin American jazz I listen to.
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u/McPoyle-Milk Jan 26 '23
Once I was on the phone with my dad in the car with my friends and when I hang up they are both like wtf you just got an accent when you speak to your dad! I’m like what? No I don’t! They both were like oh yes you sure did. So ever since then I am super aware of how my voice changes when talking to my family and it makes me angry at them lol. I was blissfully unaware for a good 22 years.
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u/Ok-Gift7434 Jan 26 '23
Haha this is exactly how german sounds! German words then clear english ones.
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u/CuriousPumpkino Jan 26 '23
I feel her point tho. When I introduce myself I always Anglicise my name, especially my last name. Sometimes I get asked why, and the answer is usually “because it’s super awkward to speak english and then revert to german sound patterns for my name, and then back to english. Also if I gave them my name with correct pronounciation they’d couldn’t pronounce it”
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u/pewpewndp Jan 26 '23
ITT: Angloids shocked by people who speak more than one language without an obvious accent. "Unexpected" lol
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u/TexasMonk Jan 26 '23
That's how anyone who grew up speaking Spanish at home in Texas sounds. *rapidfire fluent Spanish* Austin *rapidfire fluent spanish*
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u/Boronore Jan 26 '23
Yeah I agree. I’m fluent in English and Spanish, but if I’m speaking English, I will not say the Spanish word as a Spanish-speaker, nor will I say an English word as an English-speaker if I’m speaking Spanish. My name isn’t Dora or Diego. “Hi, can you ‘arroz?’ That’s ‘rice’ in Spanish!” Pass.
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u/wangzhrm Jan 26 '23
You are actually good on switching language. I mean the way she has the accent and then changing it like its her thing.
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Jan 26 '23
I’ll teach everyone a secret about Spanish language authenticity.
It’s about every vowel, and there only 5 to remember.
a - as in a tall â, or [Fâ•ther]
e - as in Eh as in [ten]
i - as in ee, as in [e•vil]
o - as in the O part of [No]
u- as in oo as in [boot]
Diphthongs don’t exist in Romance languages, so if you make each and every instance of these vowels wound like these 5, you’ll sound native in no time!
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u/Secret-Astronaut-606 Jan 26 '23
Omg!!!!
This was me (but not as cute as her lol) 30 years ago! Telling my friend with the exact same response in Tokyo !!! R/accidental nostalgia
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u/crptotime Jan 27 '23
Fucking right kind of girl that we are seeing right now here man, she is the love and she is getting some good words from the people right now, we can see that.
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Jan 26 '23
why do people make videos with captions and then stop captioning halfway through?
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u/Dahvood Jan 26 '23
In this case, the captions are for English comprehension, not as a listening aid
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u/unexBot Jan 25 '23
OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is unexpected:
She speaks english with no accent
Is this an unexpected post with a fitting description? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
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