Japan 8

Listen to Japan 8, a 24-year-old woman from Nagoya, Japan. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 24

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1984

PLACE OF BIRTH: Nagoya, Japan

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Japanese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: The subject was attending college at the time of this interview, studying theatre.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

She went to school in Japan until she was 17 and then traveled to Perth, Australia, to study English for a year. After that, she attended college in Fullerton, California, in the United States as a theatre major. She was living in Fullerton, California, at the time of this interview.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Nagoya, in Japan—uh—n—I—I went to Kanagawa, it’s pretty close to Tokyo, um, for five years after sch—w—when I was 3.  And then I came back.  And then I changed to the different,  um, city—uh—different area in the real city.  Um when I grew up, I move around a lot compared to a lot of people, um, that lived around me.  So, um, but Nagoya is, I think, fourth biggest city in Japan?  It’s a pretty big city.  But we’re livin in a s—uh suburb and, but the transportation is really well-organized and uh, we’re real easily going—get things easily—uh pretty much in that area.  That is uh, everything is keeping around it.  Um, but Nagoya is um well-known with, lots of food, but we have distinguished food, so we are always around food.  And then, my family is um, ba—um—we don’t care about how much money we’re paying for—for food. Whatever th—we care about how much money we’re paying for other stuff but for food, it’s—it’s—i—they really don’t care how much and I think it’s a lot of people in Nagoya is like that it’s the part of our culture in our area, in our part.  Differences between here and there?  Is the manners an a respect too.  Older people and a younger people, we have, in Japan, we, by the age, if you’re one year older than me, I still—I—I have complete different behavior towards the person.  It’s completely different how I greet a them or how I talk to them.  Everything is different.  So like, when I go up to eat, I have to care that they’re, what kind of food they’re gonna choose so that I’m gonna—I’m gonna choose the food that is cheaper than that or, it’s, it’s completely, you have to care every single thing they do.  And also, that a Japanese conversation is, I think it’s very different.  That here is, conversation to each other is very direct.  That you can say exact, almost exact feeling that you’re holding to, to other people that you are expressing.  But over there, sometimes you say completely different thing, oh, completely opposite thing.  But you will read my mind, and you will say nice thing back, but then you will probably um, send a message in the sentence so that I will, like, I will try to understand what’s the meaning behind what you’re saying.  So it’s a big mind game over there.  So it’s a respect but also a big mind game over there.  But here it’s a very direct conversation so I feel sometimes it’s, it’s great.  But sometimes i—it—I think I am too s—sensitive about how to use a word so it gets me a lot more than i—it shouldn’t be affected.

TRANSCRIBED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

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• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
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• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

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