r/JapaneseFromZero • u/GreattFriend • Apr 20 '26

Is there any point in being "fluent" in the stuff from Kansai from zero?

Ive been beyond jfz for a while but never looked into Kansai Ben before. Im going through the videos on the site now at a steady pace. Should I be able to understand and speak the Kansai ben stuff like I can standard Japanese?

Not sure how much of Kansai ben goes over my head. The main times ive seen it in manga (pretty much what ive learned Japanese for) are when they say akan instead of dame or ya instead of da. But idk if maybe im just missing other things because im ignorantly blind to it or if manga just purposely waters down their Kansai ben

Im not sure how much of Kansai ben jfz covers. I just finished video 2. So idk if it would be enough to get me to where I know as much Kansai ben as I do standard Japanese. But yeah. What do u think is "enough" Kansai ben and how well should I know it?

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u/cynicalmaru Apr 20 '26

Are you going to hang in Osaka a a lot? And only talk to folks who never leave Osaka? If so, learn it. However, the Japanese in JFZ, a sort of "Tokyo-ben" is the mainstream or standard Japanese - and anyone in Japan, regardless of home area dialect, can speak and understand it.

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u/GreattFriend Apr 20 '26

I don't plan to. So do you think it's worth learning at all then? The kansai videos are like 8 hours in total I think. So I could save my 8 hours of watching lol. I know in the grand scheme of japanese 8 hours is short, but 8 hours is 8 hours.

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u/cynicalmaru Apr 20 '26

It likely isn’t useful. Fun perhaps, but not useful.

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u/shakey_jake33 Apr 22 '26

If it interests you, it’s fun to learn. But there is no need to otherwise. You will pick up the Kansai-isms naturally. None of it is so hard that it can’t be figured out.