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  • Made it!

  • Hey Guys! It's Loretta and welcome to my channel, KemushiChan!

  • Thanks so much for watching Part 1!

  • I really appreciate all of your comments!

  • We covered a lot about pronunciation and pitch accent!

  • We sure did.

  • So... shall we continue?

  • Let's finish up this video!

  • We're going to do part two of this video,

  • sharing the 10 most difficult Japanese words to say

  • and the ten most difficult English words.

  • Our videos always end up so crazy

  • we always end up laughing too much!

  • Alright, here's the next word!

  • Here!

  • I'm scared. [word: SENSEI]

  • I've been saying this one wrong too?!

  • sensei? ..... sensei?

  • Yep, you got it.

  • [sasuga sensei] Ah sensei, just as I expected.

  • A common mistake is to say it like SEN↓-sei

  • a lot of people say it with a hard, downward emphasis on SEN

  • I get called that way a lot.

  • SEN-sei, SEN-sei!

  • Another common hiccup, is people who pronounce the first "se",

  • almost as if the first "S” where a "TH"

  • almost like... thensei.

  • Kind of like there's a T in there... like that almost.

  • SEN-sei, I have a question!

  • But see, you have to lean upwards into the last half of sensei.

  • sen-SEIIIII.

  • If you say them evenly like that it sounds like the "sensei" (宣誓) pledge at the start of a Sports Day Festival.

  • The problem is that the word "sensei" is normal in English now

  • So we just use the hard SENsei pronunciation common in English.

  • Let's go to the dojo, practice karate with sensei!

  • Karate from SeNSei

  • There's Daniel(-san) and Miyagi-sensei

  • doing wax on, wax off.

  • WhAt The HeCk?!

  • The original Karate Kid movie

  • Will Smith's kids are in the new version

  • It's called Best Kid in Japanese.

  • Well, in the states everyone knows Karate Kid

  • its the movie everyone saw as a kid.

  • You gotta go like this, and this, and this...

  • He just ended up cleaning the whole house.

  • Next: Colonel

  • Ahhh, This one's bad.

  • Colo..nel?

  • Colonel? I don't even know what this means.

  • I'm sorry, this is a mean one!

  • I'm in the mood for the colonel.

  • i've never seen this word before!

  • Ohhhh no no no. You know this person. You see him almost everyday.

  • I see him EvErYdaY?!

  • Yeah, every single day. Here's the answer:

  • Ohhh! I know now! I didn't know that's how you write it!

  • It's pronounced like kernel right?

  • Exactly! For some reason, the L in the middle sounds like an R.

  • It's pronounced like an R ?!

  • I had no idea!

  • AND I DON'T SEE THE COLONEL EVERYDAY.

  • Let me clear the air!

  • I'm not eating this.

  • It's Colonel Sanders, right?!

  • I see now. This one's pretty interesting.

  • Colonel is a rank or title in the military

  • Oh, not a name? Nope!

  • His name is Sanders, and Colonel is the rank

  • like an officer or title like that

  • It's like there's colonel... and general [IGNORE MY HANDS, THEY ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF WHICH IS HIGHER. I know the comment's coming DON'T DO IT!!!]

  • What was the other rank I knew...

  • Ughhh, omg I learned it from this reference...

  • I even forgot the name of the movie it's from!

  • Saving Private Ryan?

  • It was that movie with Tom Hanks...

  • Forrest Gump? YEAH!

  • In Forrest Gump ... ...ahhh Lieutenant!

  • LieUTeNaNt DaNNnn!

  • Ahhh, phew I remembered.

  • so this is Colonel then.

  • Yep, so when I say "I'm in the mood for the colonel..."

  • you're saying you want to go to KFC.

  • I'm in the mood for some colonel!

  • Your diet is wrecked, Loretta.

  • Lolz.

  • How embarassing.

  • Colonel Harland Sanders...

  • He's a real person?! I'm so sorry!

  • He was really a colonel?!?!?!

  • I should be a lot more respectful then!

  • ThAnKs For Your ChIckEn!

  • Next word, please!

  • Here!

  • Ki ni suru.... Hmm? Say it again.

  • *smaller voice* ki ni suru...

  • *says it fast* ki ni suru...

  • I think I hear a slight accent?

  • ki NI suru. ki NI suru.

  • Wait, how did I say it before?

  • Kini suru (emphasizing the KI)

  • A lot of people emphasize the KI in ki ni suru or ki ni naru (sounds like "to become a tree")

  • (wrong) Kini naru

  • Ahhh I actually hear it now.

  • me kara uroko (scales from the eyes)

  • we also say "the scales fell from my eyes" in English!

  • Like you finally realized and see clearly now.

  • That's crazy we have the same idiom.

  • ki ni suru to.....

  • ok hold up...... ki ni suru to kiri ga nai

  • ....ki ni suru to Kiri ga nai...UH OH (said the KI in KIRI too forcefully)

  • ki ni suru to... ki ni.... ki NI SURU TO

  • aghhwhw....

  • KI ni suru to - NOPE

  • ki ↑Ni SURU TO (lean upwards into the ni) (if you pay too much attention...)

  • If you pay too much attention to grammar and pronuncation you'll BECOME MIST

  • Nope, missed it again.

  • Ahhhh I'm so pissed!

  • go up after the first ki

  • ki NI SURU TO KIri ga nai

  • go back down on the second ki and back up on RI again

  • Just like the phrase, THERE'S NO END TO THE MADNESS

  • this phrase has a double meaning!

  • This is actually really hard, but a lot of fun.

  • Everyone needs and AkKiE-SEN-sEi in their lives.

  • An Akkie-SENsEi...in their rural lives.

  • OK sending you the next English word...

  • Back with the R's again?!

  • YEP!

  • Squirrel.... squirrel... ...PERFECT!

  • My Japanese friends are always shocked by the amount of squirrels in the States.

  • There's a lot of them?

  • Dude, they're everywhere!

  • I'm imagining all these squirrels bounding over to you like a Disney movie

  • Yeah, squirrel is pretty hard to say.

  • Do you have any tips for the Japanese viewers?

  • Yeah just like, throw up your guts.

  • Ya just gotta hurl it out there.

  • From the deep depths.

  • I do actually have a tip that worked for me

  • I haven't seen it because it's too scary, but do you know The Grudge?

  • Oh, the sound the girl makes?

  • Practicing this sound actually really helped me.

  • You have to get use to making the sounds from deep in there.

  • Something like that.

  • If you can do that you can also master girly-style of talking in the States!

  • with THIS sound?!

  • *vocal fry* if you talk like thisss then you're totally AmerIcAnNNn

  • I got this new cARRrr and it's totally COoLLLl

  • then SquiRRelLlSs where in my CaRrRR

  • So cooLlLll squirrels in my YaRDdDd and

  • Yeah, the whole vocal fry thing.

  • A lot of people actually can't make that grudge girl sound.

  • DiD you Get iT ThiS TimEEe???

  • Didya GetTT iTTtt??

  • Seriously though, as Japanese students learning English

  • we were told to curl our tongue back

  • but if you don't use your throat more it sounds more like this sound

  • Yeah you gotta dig deep for this one.

  • You HAVE to use your throat.

  • Just like... throw up.

  • If you don't...

  • ThenNn You Won'T SpeAk EnglIshHhH

  • squirrel and...quoerrl?

  • the word that means fight?

  • Ah, quarrel!

  • Ah yeah, this one's tough too!!

  • It's so hard when L and R are in the same word.

  • Pearl? Curl?

  • A twirling squirrel...

  • See and now you've got W's R's AND L's in one word...

  • Uncle Earl in his rural yard went outside to find the twirling squirrels.

  • My guts will fall out if I say that too hard.

  • Alright get ready for the next word...

  • mine are going to really test you!

  • Wait.. what?! Hashi no hashi....

  • Hashi no Hashi de hashi wo tsukau. Say it again?

  • (starts saying it up and down 8million ways)

  • (meaning: I use chopsticks by the edge of the bridge)

  • The first two HASHIs are said the same way.

  • Ha↑-SHI NO Ha↑-SHI DE HAshi wo tsukau.

  • Hmm, may we should like google check my pronunciation.

  • I'm not sure this will come out though...

  • haSHI NO haSHI DE HAshi wo tsukau.

  • OH WE GOT iT NOW, FAMMM

  • Yeah, that just then was perfect.

  • It worked!!!!

  • I'm soooo happy. Sending the next word!

  • existential...

  • existential crisis.

  • Don't forget the eggs.

  • You can pronounce it like eggs-istential!

  • laundry is my existential crisis...

  • It means... is this from "exist"?

  • It has to do with your mental state

  • Like when you start overthinking if your life has meaning

  • then you start to kind of get stuck in a loop

  • like, your feelings and mental state.

  • As a joke I say laundry is my existential crisis

  • Like I'll always have to do this. There's no point so why keep doing it?

  • I'm not getting anywhere running in circles like this.

  • Everyday you wake up like... this same loop again?

  • When you get up and think about going to work again and again

  • you start to worry if everyday for the rest of your life is just going to look like this.

  • it's like a bad mental complex.

  • That's such an English...way of saying it.

  • Wait, really!?

  • I don't think we'd think about it that way in Japanese

  • Ahh, about the laundry right?

  • Like why did you move to Japan? Because of an existential crisis.

  • If I stayed in the States for the rest of my life, doing the same thing everyday I might break.

  • Like you have to keep changing things up.

  • It does seem hard to pronounce...

  • OH YEAH! The point is how to say it, not what it means.

  • Oh yeah, back on track.

  • the end part is pretty hard.

  • An even harder word to say may be existentialism.

  • it's like the whole movement behind it?

  • Like a movement in art and books

  • ahhh, like a faction/way of thinking you subscribe to.

  • I feel like the most famous/closest example in Japan is Natsume Soseki.

  • kind of like the realism movement?

  • I think it came before realism....

  • er no, I think after.

  • You first have to see your reality before you start freaking out about it.

  • I'm sure I won't see this word in normal conversation.

  • You might in English!

  • This sarcastic cynicism is common in American English

  • this is my existential crisis. Mmk, got it.

  • Everyone in the comments is going to worry if I'm ok...

  • There it is. Existential Crisis.

  • Siri: Should I keep going?

  • No, see Siri, that's YOUR existential crisis.

  • [tsuchi wo tsutsuku] to poke at the ground

  • This is... uh... tsu...ts--- tsuchi?

  • Yep, you got it.

  • Want to read the whole sentence?

  • I can't ok lemme warm up my mouth...

  • Calm downnn calm down...

  • tsuchi wo tsutsuku.

  • Oh you got it! Great!

  • I feel like Slim Shady with this.

  • tsuchi wo tsusuku...

  • *starts beatboxing*

  • THAT WASN'T JAPANESE :) ?!

  • OK, my last one! Are you ready?

  • These words I gave you, are real everyday words.

  • In other words... they are... .... you gotta be kidding me.

  • Oh wait, you almost had it!

  • ....cololo..quiaill..ellweee..

  • do you say the i ? I really don't even know.

  • Ah, nope. Can't say this one.

  • Even native English speakers...

  • or at least a lot of them can't say this.

  • Like shujutsu-chuu in Japanese. It's a common colloquialism...

  • but somehow the world colloquialism is a common colloquialism

  • You spelled it wrong! (the version I texted to Akkie-sensei was wrong)

  • colllooo..... you should have the U first...

  • I SPELLED IT WRONG?!?!?

  • OMG I AM SO SO SO SO SO SORRY!

  • You mixed up the U and I and A on the phone here.

  • I messed up the vowels...

  • So yeah, impossible.

  • So...wrong for me too.

  • Colloquial....colloquial...

  • It's a common colloquialism.

  • OMG!

  • Ohhh yeah I got it!!!

  • Nice! So...you're fine!

  • No wait, what does it mean?!

  • It's like the casual version of a phrase.

  • Like your sensei would say

  • don't use colloquialisms in writing.

  • Oh really? I didn't know this word...

  • Like phrases only used in casual speech.

  • So like, don't say "I dunwanna go"

  • "I do not want to go " is better in writing.

  • I see now. Mk, last word...

  • I'm really gonna get you with this one....

  • (starts reading some ridiculous starbucks menu item)

  • uuaaacghhhh....

  • See, this is actually why I don't go to starbucks in Japan.

  • I'm not even joking.

  • Starbucks Coffee Crunchy Almond Chocolate Frappucino

  • and I say that with a Japanese accent right?

  • er...well...not bad...

  • Borrowed words are actually so hard for me.

  • Thought so!

  • It's hard, huh?

  • Wait, you say it.

  • Wait, so I was saying Starbucks wrong to begin with?

  • No, its how you say coffee.

  • You put the emphasis on KOO-hii, instead of saying koo-HII.

  • That's what I wanted to point out.

  • You're probably still saying it closer to the English

  • But you have to lean upwards into the last half of koo-HII (coffee).

  • We did WAY better than I expected

  • we had one question from a viewer actually

  • I think this is a key point that takes you from beginner to conversational speaking.

  • So the question was from Kairi

  • I've been wondering this for years when studying Japanese.

  • Japanese people put a lot of emphasis or pause after particles.

  • Is this normal? Should I be doing this?

  • [ LET'S CHECK THE CLIP! ]

  • mazu-WA....kojinteki-NI

  • Yeah, see how you said it?

  • mazu WA (long pause) .... kojinteki NI. (long pause)....

  • Ahh, yeah that's common.

  • it's not really about emphasizing the particles them selves

  • its more the whole unit that ends with that particle.

  • mazu wa is one unit (ending in a particle WA)

  • kojinteki ni is one unit (ending in a particle NI)

  • and I'm actually emphasizing that whole unit

  • so you kind of add an emphatic pause after the unit you're stressing.

  • You can also think of it

  • like when you're giving a presentation.

  • If you speaking really monotonously

  • with the same, flat emphasis on every word unit

  • then it's hard to listen to, or just boring.

  • It also has to do with not knowing WHERE to pause in a sentence

  • When I first started learning to speak Japanese

  • I said to my teacher that I don't know where to pause mid-sentence

  • that I literally don't know where to breathe.

  • Like seriously, where do you pause if you need to breathe mid sentence.

  • You just get choked and panic mid sentence.

  • So I asked my teacher where can I pause to gather my breath or my thoughts

  • and she was like, in Japanese....

  • then you can pause AFTER leaning into a particle.

  • That's what I was taught.

  • When you're speaking for too long and start to panic

  • like you need to breathe or gather your thoughts THEN....

  • like this (at the end of a phrase)

  • You can lean into the particle like that and pause

  • SO THAT WAS PRONUNCIATION!

  • That was so fun. But so long!!!

  • GoOd LucK EdiTiNg ThiS OnEee

  • As you guys know, this is Akkie-sensei

  • if you leave a comment, he'll be so happy to help!

  • So go ahead and watch his videos,

  • check out his channel and leave a comment.

Made it!

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