At university in Taiwan, Kansai dialect course explores another voice of Japan
TAIPEI (Mainichi) -- There may be no foreign place where people encounter Japanese on street corners as often as in Taiwan. Signs reading "kawaii" (cu
Taiwan is a place where people encounter Japanese frequently, with signs such as "kawaii," "gekiyasu," and "tabe hodai" that are familiar to both Japanese and Taiwanese locals. Yet, a university in Taipei is offering a unique course in the Kansai dialect, a rarer form of Japanese spoken in the Osaka region. The course, taught by Li Yu-Si, a 29-year-old instructor, emphasizes accent, intonation, and grammar.
He uses an original textbook to explain the rules behind the dialect's distinctive intonation, and has students repeat words and phrases until they become natural. The instructor himself is from the Hokusetsu area in northern Osaka Prefecture, which has many friends. Many Taiwanese Japanese speakers are familiar with the Kansai dialect, but most online resources only replace words and phrases.
Li aims to explain the dialect in a proper form, considering it the mother tongue and roots of people from Kansai. He hopes people will study it as a language in its own right, as it is the native tongue of Kansai residents. While some students want to learn the dialect for fun, Li welcomes all learners.
Written by urgent.news from The Mainichi's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
