KanKen Let's Go

おかげ okage is a phrase used express gratitude or thankfulness that things turned out as hoped. you could use it to express your thanks directly to someone, as in: 

先生のおかげで大学を卒業しました – it’s thanks to my teacher I graduated college. 

or it could be used in the fuller phrase, おかげさまで, okagesamade, which more literally means, “thanks to you.” 

although it seems to usually be written in hiragana, the original kanji was 蔭 kage. in Japanese, the word means “shadow, silhouette, phantom, etc.” however, because of its semi-religious roots, the connotation was of a shadow of a god watching over and protecting you (think something along the lines of the English phrase, “thank God”). 

While the hiragana version of “okage” [おかげ] is commonly used with either positive or negative connotations attached to it, the kanji version［御蔭] is used as honorific; solely with positive connotation often seen in business vocabulary as an expression of upmost gratitude and thankfulness.

Now, there’s something that needs to be stressed about the cultural perception of “shadow” in Japan which is also included in the term “okage”. There’re 2 types of shadow or “kage” in Japanese language, one is [影] which is the shadow created as a result of light casted onto an object while the second type that’s included in the kanji for “okage” mentioned previously [陰] which is a word more closely referring to a “dark side” than shadow per se, is a kanji used to describe utter absence of light like the dark side of the moon.

As a visual reference, the first “kage” [影] is the shadow seen in the red circle and the second “kage” [陰] is the one seen inside the blue circle instead.

The first time you feel brave enough to leave a comment on a social media post in the language

Realising that extra tricky grammar rule is finally starting to click

No longer cringing at your accent when you speak

Talking to yourself and realising you managed to construct a coherent sentence without notes to prompt you

Starting to string together sentences without stopping to think about how to say the next one

When you can start figuring out unknown words from context

Coming across a word you always forget the meaning of, only to find that this time you actually remember it

Starting to recognise distinct dialects, even if you don’t understand them at all yet

Falling in love with a particular dialect

Seeing someone new to the language asking a question and thinking, “oh, I know the answer to that!”

Knowing the perfect idiom for the situation

England: Hey, what's your name?

Japan: Nihon desu.

England: Okay, Japan.

Germany: Japan. Got it.

Japan: Wait, what?

Poland: It's Japonia, isn't it?

Japan: WTF I never said that.

Italy: Yes u did, Giappone.

Dialects can be fun and offer cultural insight. They may be useful to learn, though usually only if you have geographical links to a specific area of Japan- perhaps you have family there, personal heritage there, you live there, or are going to do a language exchange in a specific area. Linguists may also be interested just because they are really interesting.

In almost all instances for non-Japanese people learning to understand a dialect when it’s spoken/written (rather than produce it in your own speech) would suffice for communication. As far as I can see the best reason to learn to actually speak a dialect is because you want to communicate with elderly people from that region specifically; most young people have had far more media exposure so they can easily use ‘standard Japanese’/ Tokyo dialect.

If a non-native Japanese speaker learns a dialect and can’t speak standard Japanese, they may find they are seriously limited in conversations and people will inevitably find it weird. They might just find they are incomprehensible:

’I spent three years living in Nemuro, the easternmost town in Hokkaido. […]  Hokkaido-ben is often misunderstood outside Hokkaido, Nemuro-ben can’t be understood even in the next town over. So it’s basically useless unless you’re planning a trip to Nemuro (which I would recommend.) However, it does show how many variations there are in dialect, even within one island.’ [Tofugu, my emphasis]

Someone with a low communicative ability in English who could only speak using Cockney rhyming slang, but didn’t know standard English unfortunately would sound ridiculous to natives of that area. It would seem crazy to know ‘You’re ‘aving a bubble mate!’, but not ’You must be joking!’. They’d sound odd and in many instances their language would sound antiquated. Be aware that you may well get a similar reaction if you pepper your speech with regional dialect as a non-Japanese person without being conversationally fluent in standard Japanese. I’m not saying don’t learn dialects, please do if they interest you, learning to understand them when you hear them, rather than necessarily use them in your own speech, is a great idea. If you want to speak in them, please try to do it all in good time and in a respectful way that is not accessorizing the language and culture.

For beginners:

Many of the resources here will be only in Japanese, as this post is aimed at higher intermediate and advanced learners. The section below is in mostly English and will give you a general overview if you’re interested:

lingualift article (scroll down past their email sign up stuff to read)

FluentU will teach you a few basic phrases in a variety of dialects

Wikibooks has links to a few examples of phrases in different dialects

The wikipedia article will give you an informative introduction

Tofugu has a few articles on dialects:  Hokkaido |  Tohoku |  Kansai

Japan Times article on dialects

For intermediate and Advanced learners:

I’ve organised this by prefecture, but it’s worth noting that some prefectures contain several dialects and I’m by no means an expert, I hope the Tumblr Japanese learning community can contribute to and help improve this post. General:

Dictionary for dialects in EVERY prefecture

Short animations about various dialects　

Women from every prefecture saying I love you in their regional dialect

Japanese dialect Wiki

There tend to be Line stickers on sale for dialects, as people think they’re cute and want to show local pride, try searching the Line sticker store for the dialect you want and you can use them in conversations, which will give you a little practise.

Big Weblio guide to all prefectures’ dialects

方言で話そう on Twitter will show you phrases in a variety of regional dialects from around the country

Project Guttenburg article which gets more into the linguistics of Kansai ben

I made a post on Kansai ben a while back and @similarjapanesewords made a post about it before too

video comparing local variations of the same phrase spoken by native speakers 1 2

This Youtube channel has a lot of different dialect tutorials (all Japanese)

There’s another Youtube channel here too (all Japanese)

hougen-japan

ALC dialect quizzes

The Japanese Wikipedia page has a lot more detailed information than the English page, naturally.

Kansaibenkyou

Maps of where some dialects are spoken

Wikipedia has a lot of basic introductory information on dialects, there are almost certainly dialects I’ve missed from this list, if you search for the prefecture or geographical location and the word 弁 or 方言 then you’re likely to find a dialect, even if it isn’t simply called [place name]弁.

Hokkaidō |  Hokkaidō ben dictionary |  Hougen.u-biq |  Tofugu introducation to Hokkaido ben

Aomori |  Goo Aomori ben dictionary |  Japanesepod101 1 2 3 4 5 |  animation about Aomori ben  |  Kindle book written in Aomori ben

Iwate |  Phrase guide  |  dialect dictionary

Miyagi |  Hougen.u-biq | Vocabulary | Introduction to Miyagi ben | Sendai ben

Akita |  Akita ben course  |  How to use け in Akita ben  |  How to use こ in Akita ben

Yamagata |  A few introductory phrases  | Yamagata ben phrases  |  Yamagata ben dajare  |  Yamagata ben grammar

Fukushima |  Fukushima ben Dictionary  |  Usage guide

Ibaraki |  Ibaraki ben dictionary |  Learn Ibaraki ben phrases

Tochigi | Tochigi ben guide to pronunciation and expressions | Tochigi ben dictionary |

Gunma | Five page vocabulary guide | 7 lesson course in speaking Gunma ben

Saitama | North Saitama dialect vocabulary | Phrases | More vocabulary | Saitama ben dictionary on Goo

Chiba | East Chiba dialect | Learn Bōsō dialect | Another Bōsō website | Bōsō dialect quiz | Sotobō dialect guide

Tokyo | dictionary |  Tokyo dialect on Jlect | Tokyo ben on Chaku wiki | About Tokyo ben | vocabulary

Kanagawa | 10 phrases | Yokohama and Kanagawa dialect dictionary | Kanagawa ben on chaku wiki

Niigata |  Niigata ben dictionary  |  Japanesepod101 1 2 3

Toyama | Vocabulary | Toyama ben on Wikibooks | Simple phrases | About Toyama ben | Basic introduction to Toyama ben | Toyama dialect competition

Ishikawa |  Ishikawa ben Dictionary on Goo | Wikibooks Ishikawa dialect guide | Kanazawa ben guide | English book on Kanazawa ben

Fukui | Fukuiben.com | Hokuriku dialect (spoken in several prefectures)

Yamanashi |  Koshu Dialect Laboratory | Koshu ben dictionary | Yamanashi ben on Goo | There are a couple of posts here in English

Nagano |  Goo Nagano ben dictionary  |  Nagano prefecture guide to Nagano dialect  |  Matsumoto dialect page

Gifu |  Large vocabulary list  |  Mino ben guide |  PDF guide with accent information etc  |  another vocabulary list  |  Short video in Mino Ben

Shizuoka |  Page with links to several local dialects found in Shizuoka  | Shizuoka ben version of a commerical  | 10 funny phrases

Aichi |  Hougen.u-biq |  Nagoya ben website

Mie |  phrase guide |  features of Mie ben

Shiga |  large word and phrase list  |  vocabulary list

Kyoto |  Hougen.u-biq |  vocabulary list  |  More vocabulary

Osaka |  Hougen.u-biq |  video tutorial |  Kansai ben/Osaka ben word list

Hyōgo |  vocabulary list |  Hyogo ben on chaku Wiki |  

Nara |  Nara dialect on Chaku Wiki  |  Video discussing the subtelties of Nara dialect within Kansai ben  | vocabulary list

Wakayama |  Word list |  Some honorific expressions in Wakayama dialect PDF | Wakayama ben article |   Wakayama Kansai ben vocabulary |  Apparently there’ll be a radio show about Wakayama dialect soon so maybe they’ll have a podcast

Tottori |  dictionary |  large word and phrase list |  another vocabulary and phrase list

Shimane |  Izumo-ben 出雲弁 | Izumo ben in detail

Okayama |  large word and phrase list | Okayama ben corner | Interesting Okayama ben

Hiroshima |  Hougen.u-biq |  Hiroshima dialect

Yamaguchi |  Yamaguchi ben |  Vocabulary | quiz

Tokushima |  Awa ben video tutorial  |  vocabulary list  |  large phrase and vocabulary list

Kagawa |  vocabulary and phrase list  |  phrase list

Ehime |  Some Iyo vocabulary  |  Iyo dialect guide

Kochi |  Origins of Tosa ben and Hata ben PDF (bilingual)  |  Tosa ben introduction  |  Hata dialect introduction  |  The Lexicon of Kochi Japanese PDF (academic paper)  |  Kochi funpage on Youtube

Fukuoka |  series of videos on how to use Hakata ben |  video tutoiral |  verb conjugations

Saga |  Saga ben dictionary | Goo Saga ben dictionary

Nagasaki |  Nagasaki ben resource with recordings of sample dialogues |  Goo Nagasaki ben dictionary |  A story book written in Nagasaki ben (available on Kindle)

Kumamoto |  How to use Kumamoto ben  | Kumamoto ken vocabulary, a lot of these seem rough/rude

Ōita |  video |  Goo Ōita ben dictionary

Miyazaki |  Miyazaki ben explanation |  vocabulary and explanation

Kagoshima |  Vocabulary |  big word list  |  More vocabulary and phrases 

Okinawa |  Traveller’s guide to Okinawan dialects  | Huge list of Ryukyuan vocabulary  |  Uchinaguchi dictionary

There are books on dialects, typically designed for native speakers, such as this dialect dictionary, or this Tosa ben guide available in Japan, but you’d need some very advanced Japanese to be able to access them, in which case I doubt you’d be following my blog.

Beyond regional dialects there are also many languages that are native to Japan that are not Japanese. If you’re interested in learning Ainu, one of the Ryukyuan languages, Japanese sign language, or another language from Japan that is not standard spoken Japanese then this Tofugu article may interest you. Many of these languages are endangered. Thanks to these bloggers who helped contribute to this post:

Want to include more Ainu resources since the one on this post isn’t properly working.

*doesn’t take pictures or anything*

Aside from the regular dictationary function, it has premade word lists for studying!

Plus you can make your own lists or add words to Favorites!

You can also search by radical! And multiple radicals!

My absolute favourite part of this app, though, is the ability to look at a kanji breakdown of each word, which also shows stroke order! It's excellent for kanji practice.

And from here, by clicking on a kanji, you can view the individual radicals and their meanings:

10/10 app, I definitely recommend this for anyone studying Japanese. It even has kana charts for beginners (available from the main menu.)

because (sometimes) they motivate me

How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky

The secrets of learning a new language | Lýdia Machová

How to learn any language in six months | Chris Lonsdale | TEDxLingnanUniversity

Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game | Marianna Pascal | TEDxPenangRoad

Why We Struggle Learning Languages | Gabriel Wyner | TEDxNewBedford

5 techniques to speak any language | Sid Efromovich | TEDxUpperEastSide

Breaking the language barrier | Tim Doner | TEDxTeen 2014

How to learn any language easily | Matthew Youlden | TEDxClapham

The Irish Language and Beauty | Dónall Ó Héalaí | TEDxBerkeley

How to Talk Like a Native Speaker | Marc Green | TEDxHeidelberg

How the language you speak affects your thoughts

Hacking Language Learning: Dr. Conor Quinn at TEDxDirigo

How learning German taught me the link between maths and poetry | Harry Baker | TEDxVienna

We'r Needin tae Talk Aboot Wir Language | Michael Dempster | TEDxInverness

One Simple Method to Learn Any Language | Scott Young & Vat Jaiswal | TEDxEastsidePrep

Learning a Second Language | Shinyoung Grace Kim | TEDxYouth@AISR