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its hard to get swedish right, it needs more time to get the pronunciation right, the pitch accent in swedish is easier than in japanese just two patterns
I feel like Pewdiepie's Japanese pronunciation might hindered by him trying to meme or entertaining his viewers in his regular content by exaggerating his Japanese pronunciation like a stereotypical foreigner would. If there were more videos of Pewdiepie just being Felix Kjellberg like in a vlog video and speaking Japanese like he would normally would, I think it would be easier to evaluate his Japanese conversational levels.
I feel like Felix have quite a distinct accent and melody, even when speaking Swedish. And he does it when speaking English as well, even in the vlogs and when he speaks normally to the camera. I believe it's just how he actually speaks a lot of the time. Some people just have a way of speaking that stands out. Besides, the Swedish accent can quite strongly shine through when we speak another language. It can be jarring listening to Swedes speaking English for example. Like, the grammar can be all good, and the person is fluent. But listening to it? It's like a big OOF. Harsh to the ears man. For a lot of us, it's going to require plenty of deliberate practice with pronunciations and speech melody to take that harsh edge off. More practice than what Norwegians and Danes typically need to do. Obviously he is going to exaggerate it, for entertainment purposes too, as you mention. In these clips it was fairly obvious that some of them were exactly that.
He said that he's not that goofy outside camera tho, marzia even said he's too serious, according to the guy himself at least. If he does study adequate japanese, surely he does it seriously
Swedish actually uses the same kind of pitch accent. I’m surprised pewdiepie didn’t use that knowledge to his advantage. Being Swedish and studying Japanese at high school, It has helped me understand the structure of sentences for sure ^^ Edit: I’d appreciate if all the scientists below stopped repeating the same stuff. I didn’t mean “exactly the same”. They’re two different languages, I know that.
I'm an American who's trying to learn Japanese and Norwegian. I'm not sure how much I can compare Norwegian to Swedish, but I am aware that both have their respective pitch accents. So it's interesting to see how pitch accents are low-key ending me, and how a Swedish speaker such as yourself is experiencing it.
@@rossdelarosa792 idk how Norwegian pitch accent works, but they definitely have one. Swedish is very much like Japanese. One word changes meaning completely with just one change of a pitch. For example: andEN = the ghost ANden = the duck
Studying pitch accent is not common in beginner courses. My university used Genki and there is no mention of it in any of the lessons. It's more of a thing you stumble upon yourself, which I think is a crime. Proper pronunciation deserves to be emphasized as much as everything else.
I wouldn't call it the same kind. Swedish is still mostly a stress accent language I would say. The pitch accent doesn't have to appear in a word, there are thousands of words that only have the stress accent instead of the pitch one (for example: "anden" pronounced with the stress accent and with the pitch accent are two different words). Also the contour of the pitch accent of Swedish is "jumpy" and always the same in one's speech register (although varies between dialects) - the pitch in the first syllable of the word falls down and then flies back up at the second syllable. Japanese on the other hand doesn't have stress at all, only pitch, which can only be high or low and there are four patterns in total. That said, I definitely agree that having that as a feature of one's mother tongue can help immensely with other languages using pitch accents even though my own only has a stress one (but I've been learning Swedish for a long time:) )
Just to note, Pewdiepie says straight up he doesn't know much Japanese. It's more that he can understand some basics from others talking. If you watch his latest video from Japan, he talks about how little he knows, lol.
He has said in a few vids that he's learning tho and as someone who has bee for a while with probably the same amount as time put to it as him, he's doing nice
I was watching this video and i realize, man, Yuta is just so sympathetic and likable, im so glad i get to watch your content! its entertaining, informative and just makes me feel good when i watch, wholesome in a way. がんばろう !
I find myself watching Yuta's videos just for the plug now. Every time I start the video I'm like "how's he gonna manage it this time" I love the transitions.
If you anticipate that you will often want to give up at learning while you are feeling motivated about it then you will be able to get through the hard periods far easier
PewDiePie speaks that textbook Japanese alright anyway now he's living in Japan I guess he will speak more fluently and speak like a native Japanese person one day.
If he studies it, yes for sure. If not, I can asure you that he'll keep struggling it even in 10 years. It happens very often, that people which migrated there and didn't put effort to the language STRONGLY advices to not make that mistake
He just moved to Japan, you can verify his Japanese speaking skills in person if you can meet with him, Im sure he's just around there somewhere, he did make a vlog of what he's doing and where he currently is Im sure its not that hard
I remember doing the Japanese part of my JET Programme application a month ago (and I am at an introductory level) and hearing what's your name and where do you work at regular speed and asked in a different way than how I learned it, I was tripping. It took me 3 times hearing the questions and focusing on one or 2 words to get it. I have been listening to beginner podcasts a lot for the last two weeks and my listening has improved but the difference between textbook Japanese and natural is glaring
@@zamooti4505 RU-vid teppei sensei( for beginners specifically). He has intermediate and others and is just the best host. He's also an italki teacher but he's not taking beginners right now so sadly I'm lucked out. They're on RU-vid and Spotify and his website.
I am studying more intensively only until recent days. I am a more curious guy so instead of focusing on raw vocab or sth, I ended up doing various different japanese tests. What I noticed from different audio samples is the phenomenon you describe. Even when hearing phrases or words I am used to, at faster speeds, I can understand most of times. But if the sentence is phrased differently or has unknow vocab in between, it gets way harder to keep up.
I’m looking forward to seeing Felix’s Japanese get better now he has moved to Japan. Gives me the motivation to improve my own. I’ve hit a wall with my own learning
ok, so I have a question regarding the pitch pattern of いいえ which gets shown in the first minute of the video. He says that the pitch pattern is "low high high", however it sounds as though the pattern in terms of actual musical pitches goes from low to high, and the drops just a little bit. My music theory knowledge kicked in, and it sounds like a jump up of a minor sixth and then a drop of a half step, and I checked with a piano and the notes are closest to an Ab, E, Eb. I understand that is a long tangent to get to my question, but basically what makes a Japanese pitch pattern high or low? Is it relative to your starting pitch, and as long as it is noticeably higher than that it is considered a high tone, or is it based on the pitch of the last tone regardless of how small a drop or jump in pitch? Sorry for the long question, I really appreciate the time you put into your videos to explain how people actually talk instead of teaching the same way every other resource teaches.
With my limited understanding, the syntax is a bit more comparable to "Yoda speak", in regards to the sentence structure often used by the StarWars character. And I suppose the intonation thing is why puns and wordplay are often featured in comedy anime? (Although those of us that enjoy the shows without really understanding the language tend to see it as funny in a more non-sequitur way. Although in some rare instances the same jokes do translate to other languages.)
Bro how I wish yuta and pewdiepie will have a collab soon. Maybe a outdoor vlog or the interview type of thing or anything. Yuta's humor and pewdiepie might be a great hit. Since pewdiepie will be living in japan I'm sure one day a collab will happen just like how he hangsout with trashtaste dudes. I'd for real can wait for years for that to happen lol
Pewdiepie has 100% studied Japanese, at least a little. I just finished a very beginner Japanese course recently and I'm shooting for passing N5 sometime this year and the phrases Pewds was saying and the way he was saying them was definitely not just your typical weeb fare.
I definitely think he studied a bit, and also traveled a lot of times, but he's still not really a speaker, at best he would get by in a short conversation with someone who has a bit of patience
I think the vast majority of Japanese learners like myself use textbook Japanese/keigo. Without ever linking sentences together. It is incredibly difficult to think about quickly because the sentences are backwards to how they are arranged in latin-based languages. Pewdiepie is clearly not repeating something he heard from anime, he is probably reading the genki books lol.
the real problem is that they start learning japanese for books without real context, once you start to read blogs, conversation, even listen pitch accent in context without realizing you start to understand japanese, even my teacher who lived in Osaka for three years told us that some words are not in use anymore and there is no reason to teach them, i realized the same with grammar from all the grammar from N3 to N2 you barely use 50 per cent of all the items, some are for companies only and the rest are obsolete
The problem there is learning to translate, not actually learning the language as a language. I only know a little Latin, but I have no problem with the flexible word order. Even in English it's not always a problem for things to be in a weird order like the way Yoda speaks.
Yep, definitely. It's almost unfortunate how most textbooks and courses start you on Keigo because then you have to deconstruct the polite forms to get the dictionary forms, which is the root that every conjugation is based on anyway. It would be so much more efficient if they all just taunt the dictionary forms of things, and then the conjugation rules alongside them. But I'm a beginner learner and definitely still struggle a ton with sentences beyond more than 4 or so particles chunks. I always find myself needing to hear all of the chunks, pause, and then rearrange them mentally into a form my brain can understand.
@@Snow-Willow If I didnt have a Japanese teacher to help form the conjugations, it would be such a huge hill to climb. They should really combine it with an online resource with some of the common verbs conjugated. There has to be a complete guide somewhere on the internet
It's mainly because Swedish uses pitch accents too, so it's a slight advantage. (For example: tomten (the yard) and tomten (santa claus), or gripen (the griffin) or gripen (arrested).
I'm not sure if it's the same for all pitch-accented languages (as a speaker of one that has pitch accent and phonemic lenght), they are usually significant for native speakers, and for understanding puns and nuances, but we perfectly understand when foreigners omit it. I think it's more of a problem for them. It doesn't help that most non-standard varieties have their own accents and lenghts different from standard.
I'm from Brazil, living in USA now for a couple of years, I speak 3 languages and japanese is going to be my next, I love the japanese culture. Your channel is amazing. よろしくお願いします
Holy Frick. PewDiePie is the longest running goofball on RU-vid by now. The fact that he can actually speak impromptu Japanese is actually surprising. I'm.. proud of him?
If i'll ever learn japanese, with friends, i can see myself using the uncommon and more dramatic words and phrases for fun, as i do that either way with my friends, quoting stuff. But it's important to know the distinciton, so one can know how to use them properly, even more so with the dramatic ones i'd argue.
I'm imagining the textbook way of saying, "What's your name?" in English would be like, "What is the correct nomenclature that you prefer to be addressed by?"
I look forward to pewdiepie learning more japanese now that he moved to japan :D he seems rly interested in it so im sure he will become a good speaker
Oh in spanish we do the kind of the same japanese speakers do with "anata", we don't say you (tú) in every sentence because it sounds aggressive, since the verb is already conjugated the "you" is implied and omited
I think (though I'm not 100% sure) that Japanese doesn't have verb conjugation so then who is referred to just needs to be gleaned from the context if pronouns or names aren't used.
@@seneca983 Japanese does have conjugations, but differs from other European languages, which conjugate through involved people and number of people. On the other hand, Japanese is more important the level of politeness and only has two tenses: present and past. To show an example, 飲む(nomu) is the dictionary form of "to drink" in which depending on the context could mean: I (will) drink, you (will) drink and so on with all the pronouns(there's no distinction between present & future). You could change it to its polite form 飲みます and means the same thing but more polite. I think there are 14 basic verb forms in Japanese (not quite sure, though). Even so Japanese conjugation is much simpler than French or Spanish. There are many challenges when it comes to learning Japanese such as kanji and knowing where to use the correct words in every situation. When you know more, then you realize you know nothing. Either way, I still love learning Japanese.
Det hjälper extremt mycket att vara familjär med konceptet, vilket om man har svenska som modersmål faktiskt är. Vi hör skillnaderna och förstår dem, samt hur de används i både svenska och japanska 1:1, mer eller mindre, men jag kan inte tala för alla japanskspråkiga svenskar. Felix låter som en robot eller som Yuta poängterade, en skolbok när han pratar, och hans ordaccent är extremt amerikaniserad. Han gör sig själv inte direkt några tjänster att försöka lära sig japanska från ett engelskt perspektiv, men men.
I'm pretty sure he has been learning Japanese for a few years now, but hasn't strongly focused on studying it. I hope he registers to a good class now that he lives in Japan and puts a bit more time into it.
4:57 ok ok, I've been studying Japanese for already 3 months, but I don't know why the よ particle is supposed to be here without a "you know" at the end of a sentence. Can someone explain to me pls? Same happens with the ね particle. If I don't know this, I feel like I'm not going to learn Japanese naturally :(
よ is like a spoken exclamation mark and usually used to inform someone of something they didn't know. ね is like how we say "right?" but usually you know they will agree with you something that's obvious.
after you learn through textbook you can learn through media which will basically teach you the "normal japanese". Living in japan would help a little but probably not as much as u think
would be cool for you to meet pewdiepie since he moved to japan recently. You're my favorite "japanese youtuber" and he's also one of my favorite youtubers.
Something that I have noticed mostly English speakers don't really manage to resemble the exact sound of in Japanese is what in Romanji we write as "W", which sounds more like the pronunciation of "Wa" in Hawaii, which doesn't sound correct, unless you play in Kabuki Theater. In my language (Greek) we have 2 letters (β-γ) that the "W" of Japanese sounds as if it is somewhere between the two of them, so it's easier to resemble its sound. A year ago, while I was training a friend of the time which was making anime song covers, without being Japanese speaker, at first he was approaching the accent from the English point of view but when I explained him and made him understand he should approach it through Greek sounds, it was way more easy and the accent was way more natural. In general, I think Greek and Japanese have some similarities as they are two languages with more clear neutral accent, some common letter pronunciations and tonal patterns.
It's interesting because Pewdiepie isn't a native English speaker either. His native language, Swedish, also shares some similarities with Japanese that he seems to bypass while speaking. I assume he's also learning Japanese through English and thus applying certain English mannerisms to his Japanese speaking.
I can say the same thing for German. All the vowels are pretty much the same. Some consonants, like s, z, j and r, aswell as pitch accent are different however.
@@user-wf1wd6fl2i I know he is Swedish and that's my point exactly when I am referring to that old friend of mine. I fully agree with you, because of Romanji and often anime being the first contact of people with Japanese language, English is the mediator between a person of any ethnicity and Japanese, therefore, people often approach Japanese that way.
@@Kestrel16C Yes indeed and fun fact, sometimes while I am trying to explain the sound of some words, I use German as an example, like when I try to describe the Japanese H or Greek Χ, I say it's like the German "ch" or Japanese "Ya" or Greek "Γεια" as the German "Ja".
I guess I'll speak some textbook Japanese and when I was in Japan, people were surprised and impressed to hear some Japanese and in return they try their best English. It was a wonderful experience, you see people opening up a bit for a conversation and it made me feel welcome.
I met a few Swedes. Their English is amazing! Most of them, you cannot tell that English is a second language. Whatever their teaching process is, they should replicate it in other countries and with other languages.
Its typically because they get tons of exposure to English throughout their whole life. Due to the fact that a lot of Europe already speaks English, and in a lot of European countries, taking English in school is required. In other words, just a lot of immersion since childhood and a focus on the language in school. Which generally isn't very reproducible unless the target language is being constantly spoken and taught since childhood.
yeah it's literally just exposure to english, obviously education also helps but no matter what you're not gonna become indistinguishable from a native from school alone. people in the nordic countries watch a lot of english tv, movies, use english social media etc.
its because of the phonetics, Swedish have a huge catalog of phonetics they could replicate most languages in terms of vowels, consonats is their weak point but still 20 or so vowels and 40 or so phonetics sounds in total their pronunciation is the hardest to learn
thats definitely part of it, but other countries in Europe, with similar english proficiency, don't have mother languages with such flexibility. And English, in terms of phonetics isn't even that complicated (with the exception of th and v sounds) so strong phonetics wouldn't even be that important (again with the exception of th and v sounds).
We don't translate much non-Swedish into Swedish, we instead use subtitels. So we have to learn english to understand films and games. And games don't even have subtitels in Swedish.
Anyone have a recommended Japanese dictionary that notates the pitch accent? Prefer an English-Japanese dictionary, but a Chinese-Japanese or Japanese only dictionary would be ok too.
@@francesjavierobando9760 Which is a superb language also because, usually, it is pronounced mostly as it is written and, unlike the Japanese, it does not require learning three different sets of alphabets/hieroglyphs.
@@StrangerHappened pronunciation differs from language to language, you can say it because your language is similar to italian, spanish and portuguese share the same phonetics as italian some differ
Negative comment authors haven't watched a full video and they are writing comment because the title of this video. Yuta, you're polite about correction and respectful about others' Japanese As a learner of Arabic language, once I've experienced a rude correction from the Egyptian guy and it can't be compared to the method, you correct the words So, this video is really nice 👍
Oh wow! I am so sorry, I am not Egyptian I am Bahraini but I apologize from his behalf because Arabs aren’t like that:) I am so sorry, I had Egyptian teachers in elementary and also this year in middle school and my elementary Egyptian teachers were very rough and would get me in trouble for no reason, only my English Egyptian teacher was nice, my middle school Egyptian teachers are also so good to me so not all Egyptians are the same, btw how is your Arabic going? It’s a very hard language so it’s totally fine if you mess up even us natives do😅
How do songs work in English? In English words can change meaning if the stress is different (e.g. incite vs. insight) and pitch is actually a significant part of the stress.
