Last week, I posted a video of Julie Dreyfus and Satoshi Tsumabuki speaking Japanese in a commercial. I got a lot of people posting and emailing me about how hard it is for non-Japanese people to learn Japanese. I searched around a bit and found some more examples of young, Western people speaking quality Japanese. Please watch these videos for inspiration, if you want. These people are good! I love this girl. She's sarcastic and funny in the two videos I watched. She even has English subtitles on this one. This girl is insane and amazing and speaks Chinese, French and some Korean, along with probably English and possibly more. Her Japanese is nice.Koichi is American and I love Tofugu and if you read this blog, you already know about him. This video is about how he learned Japanese (he does a good Yakuza impression). He recommends watching dramas to learn regular Japanese. My roommates suggested the same thing to me when I first met them. Good advice. Here is another one.This girl talks about why she darkened her hair color, among other things. Anyway, her Japanese is nice in this video. Joking, Joking...A Caucasian guy who was born in Japan. I don't know if that's true, but he really sounds like a Japanese person. I also just love Ken Tanaka, too.
Another girl speaking Japanese who doesn't allow embedding.
I think that most people who make Vlogs are completely full of themselves. If you search for this kind of thing, you'll find loads of unbearable videos on youtube. These are some of the best and least nauseating (most are not nauseating at all) of the bunch! Please enjoy them!
8 comments:
Love the videos posted here! The internet is a *funny* place isn't it? Loved the Ken Tanaka video as well, he sounds so weird yet it's almost cute rather than annoying!
Sankyu, Seba.
Japanese wasn't offered at my High School, so I taught myself.
Go out to Borders or Barnes and Nobles and buy self-help Japanese textbooks and start studying. Then go online and, since people have found this blog, then they already know somebody who can speak Japanese. And since they're in Japan, they probably know people who want to learn English.
Almost-instant pen-pals!
Or else... study from textbooks, buy Japanese movies and music and work up your listening skills. It helps a lot to do that before starting to watch Japanese drama, because they usually speak more clearly in music and movies.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Good luck!
Hi, do you have to a Masters in English to teach English in Japan? Or can you have a BA in pretty much anything and still teach there if you're a native English speaker? I thought that since they usually hire foreigners as conversationalists that you don't need a Masters but I was told something different by a friend and I just wanted to ask you. Thanks!
You don't need a masters!! You can have a BA in visual arts and teach english in Japan. As long as you have a BA you're all set.
No BA and you can still teach at an eikaiwa like Geos or ECC. The pay is crap, but the hours are nice and you get to live here.
That's great! (I want to take a year off between my undergrad and my masters to live there) How would I get in contact with some decent or awesome places about teaching after I'm done my BA?
Oh wow, I just found your blog on Google and I love it ! Those videos are amazing, I love the first girl and the "moshi moshi umeboshi" guy. I feel especially proud because I've been in Japan for ten months now and can understand almost averything.
Thanks alot !
Great videos! I sort of fell in love with the first one (which sort of appears to be the idea, no?)
And the silent psychotic one has fangs!
Julie, I'm moving to Japan later this summer to teach, I'm sending my CV around schools in Kansai right now (I don't want to live in Tokyo)
I have a question for you, I did 3 years at 2 good universities in the US but never actually got my degree. I've been teaching professionally for 3 years straight now in Spain and think I'm a pretty good ESL teacher. I put I had a BA on my CV.... Do they actually check if you have a degree or will a transcript with a couple years of credits be enough proof if requested?
Thanks!
"If you search for this kind of thing, you'll find loads of unbearable videos on youtube."
LOL, that cracked me up. I know what you mean - when I'm looking for certain tutorials they're just ridiculously put together and stretch on needlessly for 7 minutes or more!
I tried teaching myself Russian and Japanese once. Maybe I should start with re-learning Spanish since I am, after all, Puerto Rican!
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