--- In [email protected], Aaron Ackerson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I live in Japan (Osaka, specifically), and I've found that the > ultra-polite language that is taught in textbooks is hardly ever used. One time I asked my Japanese girlfriend what the answer to a textbook question about honorific language was, and she said she had no idea, because no one she knows talks like that. Also, in most situations it sounds perfectly natural to refer to your own mother as "okaasan."> When someone addresses their own mother directly, "Okaasan" is used. "Haha" is used when talking to someone else about one's own mother. I suppose the younger generation uses "okaasan" in all situations. I know that back in the days of Shôwa, politeness would have been integral to daily conversation. Of course, in the Heisei era there seems to have been a certain amount of liberalisation in how Japanese is spoken. This could be what irks the hard-liners at the top of Japanese society. > It is not rude for a foreigner to use the same level of politeness that a Japanese would typically use in the same situation. I have found though that I often get laughed at when I use words from the Osaka dialect, such as "senaakan," "dekihen," or "shirankatta," even though the people who laugh at me use those phrases themselves all the time. > > Aaron> Be happy when they laugh at you; at least you give them a long- awaited-for laugh. Soon enough they just might get accustomed to you speaking Osaka-ben ;^) Personally I find a dialect like Kansai to be much more colorful than the "hyojun-go", based upon Tokyo dialect. Hyojun-go is good for work and school, but for a down-to-earth conversation local dialects are superior. (Try speaking in Castilian Spanish to a Latin American guy sometime. You'd be surprised at the difference!) By any chance, are you familiar with the rather vulgar language for which Yakuza movies are known? Your fellow Osakans would not expect a foreigner to speak Japanese fluently, let alone speak a dialect thereof, such as theirs, fluently. Currently I have my eyes on Satsuma-ben of Kagoshima prefecture. I hear that it's quite different from other Japanese dialects, often to the point of not being intelligible. It would be sad if one day everyone used hyojun-go in daily conversation, instead of their local dialects. - Arian I. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> AIDS in India: A "lurking bomb." Click and help stop AIDS now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpTY2A/lzNLAA/yQLSAA/9rHolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Japanese_Language/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
