There's nothing to feel insulted about, Japan has got a rich culture and Japanese English accent is unique in its own way. Personally, being a non-Japanese, I absolutely love Japan the way it is. The song gives a smile on my face everytime I listen to it 😄
The part where he says Toyota, Honda, and other brand names. That means he wants to show the Japanese, and you all should be proud because Japan produces many famous brands around the world. and that's why foreigners will say words from famous Japanese brands, including the famous Japanese animation name Doraemon. Namewee is a Malaysian singer, and Japanese products are very famous in Malaysia.
especially in countries that doesn't use abc. Chinese also have something similar, they have chinese words for foreign name or brands that isn't an existing word that can be translated. Nobody expects these people to pronounce foreign words as native speakers.
It's not an insulting bro. As for a foreigner I love this song and it makes me want to love Japan. Japanese language is lovingly in it's own way. Btw Iya..iya.. sound is the most sweetest part of the whole song.
He is Malaysian and we do always teasing each other’s not knowing able to understand Japanese during 90s when j-drama was a big hit. We will proudly said, “oh, I also know Japanese language like Honda Toyota Kawasaki” as a joke. Not that belittle Japanese way but they are popular brand in Malaysia back then and it’s in Japanese.
By the way, at the end, there is a scene about the interaction between Namewee and the sumo, metaphorically indicating that every language has its own non-native speakers' short when comes to learning non-native languages. It's an indeed very brilliant scene to give out the global message and the great loves towards all non-native speakers of another non-native language =D 'Just stand on your own feet, never fret of your own distinctive accent, you are what you are' =) By the way I'm from Malaysia 🇲🇾 And in Malaysia we have few different type of distinctive accented English in the way most different races of Malaysians would sounded like XD Anyway, I know what 'bakayarou' mean since we watch Japanese anime and Japanese dramas XD
Apparently he made this song because of the coming Olympics that was supposed to be held in Japan at the time. It's to introduce the way to pronounce some English word in Japanese English because it was widely known that sometimes if we pronounce it the correct way, sometimes Japanese do not understand it because what they learn is different. Nothing really wrong with it, learning to speak English like a native Japanese is fun if you think of it as a slang or something. Malaysian has their own way to pronounce English too, we switch to proper English when needed and go back to our language salad whenever we feel like it.
Namewee is using Japanese words (really mostly corporate names) in the same way that Japanese are speaking Japanglish. That is sort of the point. English speaking people might use those words because they are the only ones with which they are familiar. I hope most Japanese are not too offended. I think he is making fun of how Japanese barrow many English words but at the same time how English has homogenized many cultures. Personally as a native English US speaker I try to be very tolerant of non-native speakers as my foreign language skills are mostly at beginner level especially with Japanese.
4:20 its not an insult it aint that deep. If anything it helps foreigners in japan understand how the pronounciation of japanese people for english words work. Its just a fun little song that others can learn a little something from
Actually Namewee is a Malaysian born rapper and song writer. He is known for combining different element of music from different culture to create his music.
In Malaysia we always say we know other languages. We just use popular brands or food names of those countries. For example, we say “pizza”, “pasta”, “Alfa Romeo” and say we know Italian😂. So we say we know Japanese when we say “Honda”, “Suzuki” etc. Of course most Malaysians do speak at least 2 languages. For Chinese and Indians, will be 3. Now quite a numbers know Koreans coz of K dramas and K pop and Japanese due to many Koreans and Japanese working here.
For Sabah Sarawak most of us speak at least 3 languages because we have our own native language and half of us also speak 4 languages because we go to SJK school like me.
this video was meant for the tokyo olympics and that needs to be kept in mind many tourists visiting japan and will encounter some of these words which are similar to english. Very catch and in good taste and little crying kids love it. too bad the games were delayed a year due to the coronavirus.
I think you may have missed the point of the song. I think the humor behind most of the song’s lyrics comes from the world’s perceptions of what Japan is, which is inevitably going to be different from someone born and raised there.
😂I am Malaysian, travel to Japan few years ago and show this video to people , quite fun reaction when they watch this, keep on ehhhh~ , sorry if feel insulted, this guys almost play on every language include thai, Vietnam , malay, Chinese etc but it's not really mean it 🙈
Actually, Namewee was a normal citizens born in the city of Johor, Malaysia. But he immigrated to the outer country to chase after his dreams as a full time creator.
I think the purpose of this video are not to disrespect any language or mislead we have our own unique language it's just evolving when the time past like mixing words like English and your own language accent more important the video is catchie, fun and entertaining in my opinion
I love Japan ! But it’s japanlish, sounds so kawaii ;p Love that kito kato, makuranudo . I think this video is so fun, I want to go back to Japan soon .. Went there 4 times, still love it
Namewee is a Malaysian Chinese who had studied in Taiwan for a long time. He just got all his songs banned in China because of a video 'fragile pink" with it sarcastic undertones.
3:40 that’s why he said he is foreigner 😂 it totally make sense since he can’t understand other saying. He choose this lyrics as a humour sense of some body know a tiny bit of japanese. And these companies name are wordwide, so people will understand he don’t understand anything and miss match it with nonsense american brands in japanlish. It’s really help bring the joy for both japanese vs english users.
Don't feel bad I like this better Japanese version of these words plus many English words were borrowed from Japanese language when I was studying linguistics I studied it so be proud
Very good video and lots of fun. I don't know if you have heard of Nora Suzuki she is so talented, she has a salsa music band that in the 1990's was super popular (orquesta de la luz) As I understand it she learned the songs in Spanish phonetically and later on learned actual Spanish. They are so talented that I think that she could still be an international success today.
It mean even if I can’t really talk in Japanese, but I still say a lot of brand in Japanese. It is easy to know how much influence do Japanese goods have on the world.
It is a kind of propaganda for Olympics, foreign people will think about, does Japanese talk English like that? After that travel to Japan, they make it. Please don't feel insult you, and please focus Namewee, as he cooperate with Thailand (Thai Love Song, Thai Cha Cha); Vietnam (Rain in Ho Chi Minh); China (China Reggaeton, Sorry Boss, Stranger to the North), Malaysia (Ali, Ahkao dan Muthu).
'Ok Lah' is soooo Malaysian. The lyrics is sooooo funny to fellow Malaysians as well but I was so surprised when the first MCO in Malaysia, AiFM DJs seems really fond of the song and kept broadcasting! And when I first heard 'Ok Lah' on the radio I basically LMAO
And 'Weather Forecast' is also a very hilarious but soooo relatable song too, collaborating China artists while Namewee got his inspiration from Hong Kong bad typhoon weather but the Hong Kongers had to go schools and work as usual the next day
All do respect Shin San .. in my interpretation the singer is a Comedian he directed Comedy movies so his song as comedy song's never the less disrespect to Japanese peoples and cultures i my self drove Mitsubishi also have koibito many years ago long story..sayonara suma !!!
it maybe feel offended if you are Japanese, things like he making joke of how bad they speak in english by repeating those janpanlish word in the song, but actually in the end he say bakayaro to big guys without u sounds, it is not pronounce correctly. He try to send a message of put yourself in their shoe, think you can speak other languages easily but not.
『Hitachi Toyota Kawasaki Nintendo Canon Sony Honda』 『Suzuki Yamaha Uniqlo Toshiba Casio』 this sentence actually humourly metaphorically mean, he knows all the globally famous Japanese brands =) And 『Godzilla』, is Japanese action movie, isn't it? =D
I think if anything the joke is on the foreigner. The foreigner is trying to communicate but doesn't speak Japanese, so it says bunch of Japanese brand, because they mostly sound Japanese and could be a Japanese word too. Like 'Hitachi', 'Toyota', 'Honda'. Imagine two foreigners talking to each other and one says they speak fluent Japanese, when he really doesn't, and when asked to speak a little Japanese, he just says a bunch of Japanese brand and form it like a sentence, and the other guy won't know any better. It reminds me of that scene in scary movie I think, when ju-on is speaking and it's just saying Japanese brands.I mean everyone gets the joke, but if you think about it, it's also very impressive that Japan has so many world known brands. How many countries can you make a similar joke out of, and it's not just product brands, even shows like Doraemon, and also there are animes like Naruto that's well known world wide, also their adult film industry. The range is just incredible.
Rofl, you don't understand, the song about teaching foreigners that want to travel to Japan, not insulting at all... it is English but you convert it to Katakana and thus the pronunciation is different and thus Japanglish.
It seems it is not THAT amusing or hilarious if you are japanese and you listen to this music video, because you will understand completely what the words mean and it will not make any sense. But for foreigners, when we are trying to speak Japanese and when we just string words using Japanese brands in a sentence, people understand we are just being humorous. The intention is understood. But i can see that you will feel insulted. There may be a misunderstanding here. And because we foreigners do not know how to pronounce the japanese words, it sounded funny when we try.
Singapore has Singlish, Malaysia has Manglish, Germany has Denglish, Spain has Spanglish, China has Chinglish, Tamil+English is Tanglish and Arabic+English is Arabish. So what’s the point of feeling insulted when Wasei eigo is simply introduced to us foreigners? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s just an appreciation of culture diversity and that’s it.
Dude. "Japanglish" means japanese + English. So they are things smashed together. Orations of English and Japanese in single words or words with Japanese pronunciation added into the English words.
What foreigners want to hear is the actual japanese way of pronouncing the english words, of course every english speaking person will know its read as Starbucks. if you dont know why they mention Honda, Toyota etc, here's why, it a silly joke in Asia region when a japanese bombards you with their "machine gun speed" japanese, you just need to reply them with random japanese words, and the most common japanese words are the car brands that you see on the road everyday. hence those words in the song. This "silly joke" if you noticed, chinese movies/shows where it involve japanese speaking, they kinda do the same thing, the guy replying will act blur and reply with random japanese words.
Actually , Namewee he has banned by a "fragile" country recently , and if you search for the reason being banned..... that was very funny , and you will be more intrested in , His Song , His Lyric , and His all Music videos!!! hahaha
