Made it!
Hey Guys! It's Loretta and welcome to my channel, KemushiChan!
Thanks so much for watching Part 1!
I really appreciate all of your comments!
We covered a lot about pronunciation and pitch accent!
We sure did.
So... shall we continue?
Let's finish up this video!
We're going to do part two of this video,
sharing the 10 most difficult Japanese words to say
and the ten most difficult English words.
Our videos always end up so crazy
we always end up laughing too much!
Alright, here's the next word!
Here!
I'm scared. [word: SENSEI]
I've been saying this one wrong too?!
sensei? ..... sensei?
Yep, you got it.
[sasuga sensei] Ah sensei, just as I expected.
A common mistake is to say it like SEN↓-sei
a lot of people say it with a hard, downward emphasis on SEN
I get called that way a lot.
SEN-sei, SEN-sei!
Another common hiccup, is people who pronounce the first "se",
almost as if the first "S” where a "TH"
almost like... thensei.
Kind of like there's a T in there... like that almost.
SEN-sei, I have a question!
But see, you have to lean upwards into the last half of sensei.
sen-SEIIIII.
If you say them evenly like that it sounds like the "sensei" (宣誓） pledge at the start of a Sports Day Festival.
The problem is that the word "sensei" is normal in English now
So we just use the hard SEN↓sei pronunciation common in English.
Let's go to the dojo, practice karate with sensei!
Karate from SeNSei
There's Daniel(-san) and Miyagi-sensei
doing wax on, wax off.
WhAt The HeCk?!
The original Karate Kid movie
Will Smith's kids are in the new version
It's called Best Kid in Japanese.
Well, in the states everyone knows Karate Kid
its the movie everyone saw as a kid.
You gotta go like this, and this, and this...
He just ended up cleaning the whole house.
Next: Colonel
Ahhh, This one's bad.
Colo..nel?
Colonel? I don't even know what this means.
I'm sorry, this is a mean one!
I'm in the mood for the colonel.
i've never seen this word before!
Ohhhh no no no. You know this person. You see him almost everyday.
I see him EvErYdaY?!
Yeah, every single day. Here's the answer:
Ohhh! I know now! I didn't know that's how you write it!
It's pronounced like kernel right?
Exactly! For some reason, the L in the middle sounds like an R.
It's pronounced like an R ?!
I had no idea!
AND I DON'T SEE THE COLONEL EVERYDAY.
Let me clear the air!
I'm not eating this.
It's Colonel Sanders, right?!
I see now. This one's pretty interesting.
Colonel is a rank or title in the military
Oh, not a name? Nope!
His name is Sanders, and Colonel is the rank
like an officer or title like that
It's like there's colonel... and general [IGNORE MY HANDS, THEY ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF WHICH IS HIGHER. I know the comment's coming DON'T DO IT!!!]
What was the other rank I knew...
Ughhh, omg I learned it from this reference...
I even forgot the name of the movie it's from!
Saving Private Ryan?
It was that movie with Tom Hanks...
Forrest Gump? YEAH!
In Forrest Gump ... ...ahhh Lieutenant!
LieUTeNaNt DaNNnn!
Ahhh, phew I remembered.
so this is Colonel then.
Yep, so when I say "I'm in the mood for the colonel..."
you're saying you want to go to KFC.
I'm in the mood for some colonel!
Your diet is wrecked, Loretta.
Lolz.
How embarassing.
Colonel Harland Sanders...
He's a real person?! I'm so sorry!
He was really a colonel?!?!?!
I should be a lot more respectful then!
ThAnKs For Your ChIckEn!
Next word, please!
Here!
Ki ni suru.... Hmm? Say it again.
*smaller voice* ki ni suru...
*says it fast* ki ni suru...
I think I hear a slight accent?
ki NI suru. ki NI suru.
Wait, how did I say it before?
Ki↓ ni suru (emphasizing the KI)
A lot of people emphasize the KI in ki ni suru or ki ni naru (sounds like "to become a tree")
(wrong) Ki↓ ni naru
Ahhh I actually hear it now.
me kara uroko (scales from the eyes)
we also say "the scales fell from my eyes" in English!
Like you finally realized and see clearly now.
That's crazy we have the same idiom.
ki ni suru to.....
ok hold up...... ki ni suru to kiri ga nai
....ki ni suru to Ki↓ri ga nai...UH OH (said the KI in KIRI too forcefully)
ki ni suru to... ki ni.... ki NI SURU TO
aghhwhw....
KI ni suru to - NOPE
ki ↑Ni SURU TO (lean upwards into the ni) (if you pay too much attention...)
If you pay too much attention to grammar and pronuncation you'll BECOME MIST
Nope, missed it again.
Ahhhh I'm so pissed!
go up after the first ki
ki NI SURU TO KIri ga nai
go back down on the second ki and back up on RI again
Just like the phrase, THERE'S NO END TO THE MADNESS
this phrase has a double meaning!
This is actually really hard, but a lot of fun.
Everyone needs and AkKiE-SEN-sEi in their lives.
An Akkie-SENsEi...in their rural lives.
OK sending you the next English word...
Back with the R's again?!
YEP!
Squirrel.... squirrel... ...PERFECT!
My Japanese friends are always shocked by the amount of squirrels in the States.
There's a lot of them?
Dude, they're everywhere!
I'm imagining all these squirrels bounding over to you like a Disney movie
Yeah, squirrel is pretty hard to say.
Do you have any tips for the Japanese viewers?
Yeah just like, throw up your guts.
Ya just gotta hurl it out there.
From the deep depths.
I do actually have a tip that worked for me
I haven't seen it because it's too scary, but do you know The Grudge?
Oh, the sound the girl makes?
Practicing this sound actually really helped me.
You have to get use to making the sounds from deep in there.
Something like that.
If you can do that you can also master girly-style of talking in the States!
with THIS sound?!
*vocal fry* if you talk like thisss then you're totally AmerIcAnNNn
I got this new cARRrr and it's totally COoLLLl
then SquiRRelLlSs where in my CaRrRR
So cooLlLll squirrels in my YaRDdDd and
Yeah, the whole vocal fry thing.
A lot of people actually can't make that grudge girl sound.
DiD you Get iT ThiS TimEEe???
Didya GetTT iTTtt??
Seriously though, as Japanese students learning English
we were told to curl our tongue back
but if you don't use your throat more it sounds more like this sound
Yeah you gotta dig deep for this one.
You HAVE to use your throat.
Just like... throw up.
If you don't...
ThenNn You Won'T SpeAk EnglIshHhH
squirrel and...quoerrl?
the word that means fight?
Ah, quarrel!
Ah yeah, this one's tough too!!
It's so hard when L and R are in the same word.
Pearl? Curl?
A twirling squirrel...
See and now you've got W's R's AND L's in one word...
Uncle Earl in his rural yard went outside to find the twirling squirrels.
My guts will fall out if I say that too hard.
Alright get ready for the next word...
mine are going to really test you!
Wait.. what?! Hashi no hashi....
Hashi no Hashi de hashi wo tsukau. Say it again?
(starts saying it up and down 8million ways)
(meaning: I use chopsticks by the edge of the bridge)
The first two HASHIs are said the same way.
Ha↑-SHI NO Ha↑-SHI DE HA↓shi wo tsukau.
Hmm, may we should like google check my pronunciation.
I'm not sure this will come out though...
haSHI NO haSHI DE HAshi wo tsukau.
OH WE GOT iT NOW, FAMMM
Yeah, that just then was perfect.
It worked!!!!
I'm soooo happy. Sending the next word!
existential...
existential crisis.
Don't forget the eggs.
You can pronounce it like eggs-istential!
laundry is my existential crisis...
It means... is this from "exist"?
It has to do with your mental state
Like when you start overthinking if your life has meaning
then you start to kind of get stuck in a loop
like, your feelings and mental state.
As a joke I say laundry is my existential crisis
Like I'll always have to do this. There's no point so why keep doing it?
I'm not getting anywhere running in circles like this.
Everyday you wake up like... this same loop again?
When you get up and think about going to work again and again
you start to worry if everyday for the rest of your life is just going to look like this.
it's like a bad mental complex.
That's such an English...way of saying it.
Wait, really!?
I don't think we'd think about it that way in Japanese
Ahh, about the laundry right?
Like why did you move to Japan? Because of an existential crisis.
If I stayed in the States for the rest of my life, doing the same thing everyday I might break.
Like you have to keep changing things up.
It does seem hard to pronounce...
OH YEAH! The point is how to say it, not what it means.
Oh yeah, back on track.
the end part is pretty hard.
An even harder word to say may be existentialism.
it's like the whole movement behind it?
Like a movement in art and books
ahhh, like a faction/way of thinking you subscribe to.
I feel like the most famous/closest example in Japan is Natsume Soseki.
kind of like the realism movement?
I think it came before realism....
er no, I think after.
You first have to see your reality before you start freaking out about it.
I'm sure I won't see this word in normal conversation.
You might in English!
This sarcastic cynicism is common in American English
this is my existential crisis. Mmk, got it.
Everyone in the comments is going to worry if I'm ok...
There it is. Existential Crisis.
Siri: Should I keep going?
No, see Siri, that's YOUR existential crisis.
[tsuchi wo tsutsuku] to poke at the ground
This is... uh... tsu...ts--- tsuchi?
Yep, you got it.
Want to read the whole sentence?
I can't ok lemme warm up my mouth...
Calm downnn calm down...
tsuchi wo tsutsuku.
Oh you got it! Great!
I feel like Slim Shady with this.
tsuchi wo tsusuku...
*starts beatboxing*
THAT WASN'T JAPANESE :) ?!
OK, my last one! Are you ready?
These words I gave you, are real everyday words.
In other words... they are... .... you gotta be kidding me.
Oh wait, you almost had it!
....cololo..quiaill..ellweee..
do you say the i ? I really don't even know.
Ah, nope. Can't say this one.
Even native English speakers...
or at least a lot of them can't say this.
Like shujutsu-chuu in Japanese. It's a common colloquialism...
but somehow the world colloquialism is a common colloquialism
You spelled it wrong! (the version I texted to Akkie-sensei was wrong)
colllooo..... you should have the U first...
I SPELLED IT WRONG?!?!?
OMG I AM SO SO SO SO SO SORRY!
You mixed up the U and I and A on the phone here.
I messed up the vowels...
So yeah, impossible.
So...wrong for me too.
Colloquial....colloquial...
It's a common colloquialism.
OMG!
Ohhh yeah I got it!!!
Nice! So...you're fine!
No wait, what does it mean?!
It's like the casual version of a phrase.
Like your sensei would say
don't use colloquialisms in writing.
Oh really? I didn't know this word...
Like phrases only used in casual speech.
So like, don't say "I dunwanna go"
"I do not want to go " is better in writing.
I see now. Mk, last word...
I'm really gonna get you with this one....
(starts reading some ridiculous starbucks menu item)
uuaaacghhhh....
See, this is actually why I don't go to starbucks in Japan.
I'm not even joking.
Starbucks Coffee Crunchy Almond Chocolate Frappucino
and I say that with a Japanese accent right?
er...well...not bad...
Borrowed words are actually so hard for me.
Thought so!
It's hard, huh?
Wait, you say it.
Wait, so I was saying Starbucks wrong to begin with?
No, its how you say coffee.
You put the emphasis on KOO-hii, instead of saying koo-HII.
That's what I wanted to point out.
You're probably still saying it closer to the English
But you have to lean upwards into the last half of koo-HII (coffee).
We did WAY better than I expected
we had one question from a viewer actually
I think this is a key point that takes you from beginner to conversational speaking.
So the question was from Kairi
I've been wondering this for years when studying Japanese.
Japanese people put a lot of emphasis or pause after particles.
Is this normal? Should I be doing this?
[ LET'S CHECK THE CLIP! ]
mazu-WA....kojinteki-NI
Yeah, see how you said it?
mazu WA (long pause) .... kojinteki NI. (long pause)....
Ahh, yeah that's common.
it's not really about emphasizing the particles them selves
its more the whole unit that ends with that particle.
mazu wa is one unit (ending in a particle WA)
kojinteki ni is one unit (ending in a particle NI)
and I'm actually emphasizing that whole unit
so you kind of add an emphatic pause after the unit you're stressing.
You can also think of it
like when you're giving a presentation.
If you speaking really monotonously
with the same, flat emphasis on every word unit
then it's hard to listen to, or just boring.
It also has to do with not knowing WHERE to pause in a sentence
When I first started learning to speak Japanese
I said to my teacher that I don't know where to pause mid-sentence
that I literally don't know where to breathe.
Like seriously, where do you pause if you need to breathe mid sentence.
You just get choked and panic mid sentence.
So I asked my teacher where can I pause to gather my breath or my thoughts
and she was like, in Japanese....
then you can pause AFTER leaning into a particle.
That's what I was taught.
When you're speaking for too long and start to panic
like you need to breathe or gather your thoughts THEN....
like this (at the end of a phrase)
You can lean into the particle like that and pause
SO THAT WAS PRONUNCIATION!
That was so fun. But so long!!!
GoOd LucK EdiTiNg ThiS OnEee
As you guys know, this is Akkie-sensei
if you leave a comment, he'll be so happy to help!
So go ahead and watch his videos,
check out his channel and leave a comment.