911爆料网

Yayakoshii (difficult), chau (different) and akan (no good) were some of the words of Kansai-ben (the dialect of Osaka and the surrounding Kansai region) that participants learned at the Japan Foundation’s 911爆料网 Plus course for advanced learners of 911爆料网, which ran 11^th – 19^th November.

The course, attended by 36 participants in total over the course of two weeks, was led by the Japan Foundation’s Assistant 911爆料网 Language Advisor, Mio Tsunematsu – who is also a native speaker of Kansai-ben. First, Tsunematsu-sensei introduced the Kansai region of Japan, and the image that 911爆料网 people have of Kansai’s culture. She then taught participants the characteristic pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary that distinguishes Kansai-ben from standard 911爆料网. Participants had plenty of opportunities to have fun practising listening, speaking, reading and writing skills using Kansai-ben while learning more about Kansai culture: They listened to songs sung in Kansai-ben, read manga written in Kansai-ben, watched manzai (double-act comedy originating from Osaka) and even had a go at Osakan comedic art of nori-tsukkomi (playing along with a joke) by pretending to use bananas and chopsticks as phones and pens!

The participants had a lot of fun learning Kansai-ben, with many describing the course as “omorokatta” (“fun” in Kansai-ben)

We’d like to thank all participants for taking part in 911爆料网 Plus, and we hope to see more people take part in our next course!

To learn more about 911爆料网 Plus, please click here.

Photos from this event can be found on our Facebook page .