Akita-Ben (Dialect)

I only just recently found out that the dialect in Akita is different from standard japanese, although the person i spoke to was unable to give me very much information on how different it was etc. I was just wondering whether you guys might be able to shed some light on the language difference between Tokyo-Ben and Akita- Ben. Because now i'm kind of worried about it T_T.

Thanks,

Tom

As far as I know, Akita-ben tends to have muffled sounds (or people tend to mumble words, not articulate clearly), and of course some vocabulary is different (I cannot give examples though). But nowadays with nationwide TV programs available almost everywhere throughout Japan, I don't think that the way of speaking is *that* conspicuously different particularly among young people, unless of course people from the same "hometown" are talking only amongst themselves, or something like that.

May I ask why you are worrying? Is that where you are studying Japanese now? :)

If you go to stay in Akita, being non-Japanese it's likely that most people will make some effort to speak hyojungo (standard Japanese) to you. Older people might stick to Akita ben, but Japanese people from other areas often don't understand regional dialects anyway so you will be in the same boat as them.

There are many dialects in Japan, and it varies from place to place - even Akita ben can vary depending on the area within Akita prefecture.

Like other languages, Japanese dialect could be anything from different vocab on specific things, different accent and intonation to different conjugation.
Unless you have a certain level of knowledge about the standard Japanese, it is extremely difficult to explain the differences and features for dialect, for which normally any "standard" or "grammar book" do not exist...

Japanese Wikipedia on Akita-ben
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%8B%E7%94%B0%E5%BC%81

. . . in Goshogawara, I heard many people speaking what sounded like Korean to me. I asked someone who lived in Aomori and they told me it was most likely a dialect they speak in the Akita area. Either that, or there must be a large Korean population in Goshogawara!

Everyone in Akita tells me that the accent is due to the long months of cold weather preventing people from wanting to open there mouths very much resulting in a mummbled dialect.
Here is a short breakdown of the big differences in Akita-ben from standard Japanese.

http://www.akitajet.com/wiki/index.php?title=Akita-ben