Hello everyone, my name is Takahide Kamisaka
I am a Japanese teacher
I will teach you the important thing
What? You don't understand me?
Alright, wait a sec... Ok, Google!
Give me a better English accent
Is it better now?
Oh gosh, I can't even understand what I'm saying...
Ok, give me something that's a bit more
accessible on an international level
Alright, that's what I'm talking about
Now before we start
let's embrace a Japanese zen atmosphere
Indeed, meditation and training awareness
will give you the optimal mindset to learn a language
And now that we are here, why not share a cup of tea?
To help help us relax!
And I also like treating myself, as a reward
That's why I always have a dorayaki for when I finish the lesson
But today, I am the teacher so I can eat it whenever I want
Ok, so one of the things you'll notice if you go to Japan
is the fact that even if you know the language
a lot of people will freeze when you speak to them
Some of them will literally freak out
and the most courageous ones might reply
Hum... Sorry, no English!
You'll start feeling bad
Because not only did you make all these efforts
to study Japanese and get out of your comfort zone to speak
But also because you're mentally destroying an innocent person
But don't feel bad, it's nothing personal
It's just that a lot of Japanese people
not everyone of course, but a significant amount
don't expect someone who doesn't look Japanese to them
to speak their language
It kinda messes with their brain
Although it doesn't seem to be a problem when it's in a movie
I needed you Loki
I thought we could keep fighting together
But you are you and I am me
Another reason that can explain why they freeze
is because Japanese people tend to be perfectionist
Again, I'm not saying that they're all like that
but there is definitely a tendency
It could be the education, the society or both
but my point is, they're so afraid of making a mistake
that they might as well just remain silent
So if there are any Japanese people watching this video
next time you see a foreigner speaking to you in Japanese
take a deep breath, relax and please reply to them
It's all right even if it's not perfect
But anyway, today I'm going to teach you
how to get out of this situation
First of all, don't feel bad about your accent
It's ok to have one, everybody has one
And on top of that, I think it's cool when I see
people embracing their culture
and being proud of where they're from
They're like cultural ambassadors
But there is of course a limit to the accent
And that's when people can't understand you
or need to process the fact that you're speaking their language
So in order to prevent that, you can speak slower
and insist on the fact that you're speaking Japanese
You could say [ima nihongo de shabettemasu kedo]
[Ima] means "now"
[Nihongo] means "Japanese"
[De] is a grammatical particle
but we're not gonna go into too much detail in today's lesson
[Shabettemasu] is "speaking"
Here I would like to stress the importance of the double consonant
I'm not saying [shabetemasu]
I'm saying [shabettemasu]
It's probably one of the pronunciation mistakes
I hear the most from foreigners
It's really important to mark it or else it could change
the meaning of the sentence
Alright so technically, you could just say
[nihongo de shabettemasu]
which only means "I'm speaking Japanese"
But [kedo] at the end adds a little pezaz
It makes you sound more like a native
It literally means "but"
Not the lower back but the conjunction
So naturally in English, the whole sentence would sound like
"But I'm speaking Japanese now..."
You might have noticed that I didn't use the word "I"
That's because in Japanese
you can get rid of the subject when it's obvious
You could add it if you want of course
But it's just going to be longer and less natural
There are many ways to say "I"
But the most standard one is [watashi]
And in a sentence [watashi wa]
I don't want to hear [watashi wa with an American accent]
But I'm speaking Japanese now
Now you might be facing the opposite problem
Some Japanese people think it's cool to speak English
Well it is, it's pretty cool man!
But that means some people would want to practice English with you
And you didn't go all the way to Japan to speak English, did you?
If they want to speak it, they can to the US, the UK or the internet
So here is a sentence to emphasize on the fact
that you want to study Japanese
[Benkyou] means "study"
And the ending [shitai nodesu] means "this is what I want to do"
So basically, studying Japanese is what I want to do
Normally if you say that, the person you're talking to
should understand and switch the Japanese
But if it's not the case, you could explicitly ask
[nihongo de hanashite mo iidesuka]
"Is it alright if we speak in Japanese?"
Earlier we saw [shaberu]
[Hanasu] is a synonym
It's like the difference between "talking" and "speaking"
Of course, there is a nuance but in this context
you can use them interchangeably
"But I'm speaking Japanese now"
"I would like to study Japanese"
"Is it ok if we speak in Japanese?"
Alright, so here you go!
Practice these expressions and if somebody freezes
or replies back in English, you know what to do!
If they don't want to speak to you in Japanese after that
I'll personally take care of them
That's it for today, bye!