How I Developed a Thick Accent that Gets Me Some Good Laughs in Tokyo
“Accents are not mistakes; they’re the fingerprints of language, revealing the speaker’s identity and the path they’ve traveled.” — Anonymous
When I moved to Japan, I didn’t expect to have a some kind of major linguistic journey abroad. I am a linguist and could already speak Japanese well enough. I also didn’t think that I would end up living in Tokyo — when I solo-traveled around Japan, Osaka was the first place I really felt welcome! That’s where I first landed and I started work and did my best to immerse myself in the local culture. The only problem was, that all the Japanese I had studied didn’t serve me much — the locals could understand me well enough, but I couldn’t catch a word of what they were saying. They spoke something called the Kansai-ben dialect.
I would go to local izakayas after work to grab dinner and meet with the locals. They would tease me and say all sorts of things that I’d feverishly try to catch. I even tried to Google Translate “Chau yan!” （ちゃうやん！）to no avail. They were all laughing because I couldn’t understand, and, hey, Osaka is the heart of Japan’s comedy culture.
Fast forward to now, I’m living in Tokyo and have a Japanese husband (from the Kansai area, but from Kobe, not Osaka). He speaks the local dialect and does his best to keep his language simple enough for me to understand, but I gradually came to understand it all for the most part. Aside from language, cultural adaptation in Japan can, like anywhere, take some time, so I thought I was mostly adjusted. I didn’t realize what would be waiting for me regarding Tokyo’s linguistic culture.
We currently roast coffee and started doing a little pop-up coffee stand in a local bicycle shop in our neighborhood. It wasn’t long before people started teasing me, asking “You‘re from Kansai, right?” I was totally in shock! I mean, yes I was from Kansai, but also, no! I’m from the US. Shouldn’t I have an American-English accent?! And, I had assumed that since Tokyo was such a metropolitan city with people moving here from all over the country that there would be more language diversity in Tokyo. I did not expect to be having cross-cultural communication by simply moving within the same country. Ultimately, I didn’t mind having an accent, but as a linguist, it got me thinking. How did I pick up this accent? Where is it hiding in my speech?!
“A person’s accent tells you so much more about them than just their native language; it speaks of their history, experiences, and the bridges they’ve crossed.” — David Crystal
Another thing you should probably know is that Kansai is the heart and soul of Japanese comedy. All of the most famous comedians are from Kansai and those who are not will do their best to fake this accent to gain popularity. The upside to being raised, so to speak, in Kansai is that when I tease my husband, people here in Tokyo LOVE it. It’s a particularly Kansai style of comedy, but is the KING of Japanese comedy styles. It’s called “Tsukkomi-Boke”（突っ込み・ボケ）(usually a duo with a straight man and the fool) and when the fool does something strange, the straight man has to get a dig in, chide or tease them.
Here’s an example. My husband was hanging out with friends at our shop, looking instantly at his phone and a brief Instagram search turned up a bunch of women in bikinis. I knew it was an accident, and honestly didn’t mind either way, but I decided to take this chance to “Tsukkomi!” I quickly asked him in Japanese what the heck he was looking at, and everyone lost it. The best part was, he loved it.
Here’s the thing. People in Tokyo don’t joke as much or in the same way — for people from Kansai, it’s an important part of communication. There are some very different cultural nuances in Tokyo. For example, when my husband makes a joke, the locals just say “Ohhh, is that so?”（はああ、へええ、そうですね。), which totally changes the atmosphere. Or, worse, they honestly don’t get that it is a joke and will literally ask “What do you mean?”（どうい言うことですか。） They just kill the poor joke right where it started.
Living in Kansai was a bit of a roller coaster for us, which is part of the reason we moved to Tokyo, but I’m really glad that my husband and I can share this culture. It makes me feel a little more at home, with my American roots and self-deprecating sarcasm, to be able to express myself and have my husband understand me.
As it is, my husband is still adjusting and learning about the “standardized” Japanese that is spoken in Tokyo. This means that, for now, I’m not super hopeful I can ditch the accent or mask it. It doesn’t make it easier that I hear it every day, all day at home with my husband. But that said, I’m not sure I’m ready to lose it. Maybe one day I’ll absorb more of the local Tokyo dialect and lose my Kansai-ben, but it will always hold a special place in my heart.
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