Kansai-ben there, done that When you learn Japanese in a classroom context, or even when you&rsq

Kansai-ben there, done that When you learn Japanese in a classroom context, or even when you’re self-taught, almost 100% of the time you’re going to be learning Toukyou-ben, aka the “normal” Japanese spoken by Tokyo-ites. But Japanese is rife with dialects–versions of the language that are unique to certain areas of the country with respect to little twists on verb endings or quirky speech patterns by the natives of the area. Probably the most commonly seen non-Tokyo dialect is Kansai-ben, the version of Japanese spoken by those living in the Kansai region of the country, to the southwest of Tokyo. Characters who speak this dialect are often characterized as either or both the class clown (the region has given birth to many of Japan’s comedians) or a rough/badboy/punk type. Among other aspects to the dialect, one of the hallmarks of the Kansai dialect is the use of the ending particle wa (わ, not to be confused with は). Wa is also seen as an ending particle in Tokyo-ben, but there it’s typically used as an emphatic particle ending almost exclusively by women (as in “行くわ/Here I go!”). If any men use it, they’re either 1) really flaming gay, the “okama”-type characters, or 2) from the Kansai region/imitating Kansai-specific speech patterns. In the above panel, we see Juuzen of Abe Miyuki’s Super Lovers, a Kansai character, show off his upbringing with the particle in question: Juuzen: “チンピラチンピラやかましいわ!!” (“You’re really annoying, always calling me a punk-nose brat!!”) So when you’ve got a male character tossing out lots of sentences that end in わ, this should be your first clue that they’re just speaking in the Kansai dialect (of note, there are of course different sub-dialects unique to areas within Kansai, but on the whole, this is true for all Kansai-dwellers), so don’t scratch your head too hard over it! Learning to recognize and translate dialects can be a bit daunting, but it’s not that difficult once you learn the patterns! It’s all pretty much the same Japanese, just with a little code-breaking thrown in! -- source link

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