Freyja33
33858
1583
29
sauce: https://www.youtube.com/@RealRealJapan
Aug 7, 2025 8:58 PM
Freyja33
33858
1583
29
sauce: https://www.youtube.com/@RealRealJapan
Dannyalcatraz
This is just nuts.
I LOVE IT!
TheUnnamedPoet
I love this youtube channel. The shorts always give me a good laugh. Sugi makes the funniest reactions to things.
Cosmicfisherman
These are the greatest. Always like this duo.
viskag
I absolutely love this!
NorrinxRadd
This is really interesting, just wish it wasn't cut so much
NinerThreeFourTangoXraySierra
They do have longer videos without cuts fwiw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH9n_fNA7Z8&t=2s&ab_channel=RealRealJapan
newsguycraigevans
And it goes on like that
65454685132465846865163
this made me realize people give english a lot more shit for being a silly language then it deserves
BrdCdn
I think the bizarre part of Japanese is mostly the written. English's nonsense is that the spoken part is a complete mishmash. Japanese is a more obscure and less globally known language as well so it might just also skate under the radar a bit I guess.
wetqueef
Remember most Chinese characters (a k a “kanji” in 日语） use radicals to combine meaning and pronunciation so most Japanese folklore etymology is bullshit
Freyja33
Kanji aren't identical with the chinese characters they're derived from. Even though, in many cases the exact meaning from the chinese characters has been at least partially preserved the usage of Kanji fundamentally differs from that of chinese logograms. Most Kanji have multiple pronunciations and can have multi-layered interpretations and associations that have developed over 15 centuries of use by Japanese speakers. Even when some false/folk etymology is involved in that it can be meaningful
SansAandAnguS
I love this! This guys are hilarious.
Itaru
Rabbits are delicious
thebonesofmyancestors
Hasenpfeffer is very tasty.
BackfeeElli
Oh my, this is amazing, I'm learning japanese at the moment and it's so funny to remember the vocabs he is asking. Thank you for sharing!
wythra
This is so funny and cool and interesting and I HATE that content is being so skimmed and cut and tinified for dopamine exploitation and ad revenue. I find the camera cuts and stuff frustrating. That said, 暗記 (Anki) is where the flashcard program gets its name. The same word is available in Korean, but they only spell using Hangul now, tho it is derived from the same Chinese characters, and is 암기 (amgi). Chinese characters are so cool.
DidItForScience
It also seems like it is in the wrong order.
IhopeyougetstageIIIcoloncancer
#2 I struggled with this for a while until I understood that the different verbs are different functional actions because the items are different classes.
Garments on the upper body or full body are primary clothes. Pants or lower body are secondary clothes (since they'd be unnecessary in a kimono). Glasses, like jewellery, are accessories, not garments, and aren't part of getting dressed. Hats weren't clothes, they were functional gear or station signifiers, and so weren't "worn" but "donned".
billybobbaggybottom
Heh, they are doing Manzai, a traditional Japanese double act style of comedy.
IhopeyougetstageIIIcoloncancer
........I'm familiar with Manzai, and I've seen these guys many times before, but I NEVER put the two together. I'm gonna have to sit and process this.
LankyBootyGriswald
I've always love the serious v. funny man bits
Freyja33
Had never heard of this, adds a layer of meaning to what they're doing. I always assumed it was basically just two guys trying to joke around about Japanese language while trying not to laugh
louster
Lots of this made me giggle. I love how deadpan it is, and I actually like the editing style too - it makes it really cartoonish.
sylviep155
Same same, but different. Not why, Memorize.
Cameron and Sugi are very funny. The actual goals Sugi shared in a Q&A were really good, about learning and teaching through fun.
YouRadicalizedMe
Remember the guy teaching English .??? " Nooooo". Hahahha
Freyja33
What's great about it to me is that even if you don't know Japanese, learning about its idiosyncrasies and their history can teach you a lot about language in general (as well as about japanese language/culture/history specifically)
Freyja33
Like just in the first clip, the reason why sun+sound=darkness is that in classical chinese the words for sound and darkness were very similar and so they were transcribed with the same character but with an extra character (in this case the character for sun) added on to tell you which one it is (since sun has to do with light and darkness, it's telling you that the other character means darkness and not sound)
Freyja33
And this tells you so much because even though these characters come from another language spoken a long time ago and the connection is obscure even to native Japanese speakers, it still persists, but also it does so alongside other kanji that use similar compounds in ways that still do make obvious sense like sun+ blue=sunny. It gives you a sense of how these systems have changed and evolved, as well as telling you something about where they came from in the first place and why.
horsesareevil
did these guys have a channel awhile back where they did this, but with little like white balls with just their eyes and mouths on it?
Freyja33
Not that I ever saw, but could be. If so that's not on their channel anymore though I don't think
guardianzero
Japanese isn't special! before was was was, was was is.
OriginalSyn
There are plenty of videos/jokes out there about the English as well. These guys aren't punching down on Japanese, they're just having fun.
guardianzero
Freyja33
One of the things that made Latin hard for me at first is that they don't really have words for "the" "a" "yes" or "no". Ancient Greek was more weird and probably should have been more difficult but just the fact that it has articles (even though it has 24 of them) was such a relief after years of parsing sentences without them
Vebrandsson
I've always wondered how a language without yes or no worked. I know there are some yes and no like words such as the Latin roots of the English words affirmative and negative but I think those don't show up until later Latin.
Freyja33
They just kinda don't. They do have a word for 'not' so you can negate verbs, and there are words for 'none' and 'no-one' but they just don't have words that mean "yes" or "no" as a complete answer to a question. If someone asks you if you're going to Rome, and you are you just answer with "indeed, I go to Rome" rather than "yes". And words like "indeed" or "truly" could sort of be substituted, but they usually weren't used on their own, they're usually part of a full sentence answer.
TanithRosenbaum
If you like articles, start learning German. We have 3 grammatical genders, 4 noun cases, and around a dozen articles between those.
Freyja33
*Ancient Greek getting up from a table in the corner* "AMATEURS! In my day we never left home with less than 5 cases and *two* dozen articles!"
shitheadtookmyname
Bc when the sun goes down cicadas start, and frogs etc
Fendeezy
But cicadas are noisy all day, do you mean crickets?
CJFoxx11
Birds?!
CogPrimus
(and rabbits)
Freyja33
It's actually because in classical chinese the words for sound and darkness were very similar and so they were transcribed with the same character but with an extra character (in this case the character for sun) added on to tell you which one it is (since sun has to do with light and darkness, it's telling you that the other character means darkness and not sound)
shitheadtookmyname
You know I actually wondered if it was for that reason. That whole category of "here's a pronunciation hint, semi useful depending on which dialect was most popular in whichever region of China the Japanese scholars were when the hanzi was imported"
shitheadtookmyname
Phono-semantic
RalphH
#21 the blue/green is actually quite common, many languages had/have no difference between those two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language
eepsheep
I've heard similar for blue and purple.
Quebeker
As a colorblind the green light IS blue
rycochet
For traffic lights it's different - they have to be blue by law - but for international convention they're as close to green as possible 😅
evilspyre
I also read that its to do with the distrance from the equator and sun refraction messes with people over generations and their ability to see blue / green colours differently to people who live further from the equator.
FuzzyX
I can only wonder if this is because green is not a real colour just being our mind remapping a dark area we see to green. It is also the case early civilization can have no green concept and why it was just banded together under blue. Now we have come to label every colour possible then it just becomes an oddity.
newsguycraigevans
Oh, this will upset the Irish
Gofdunk
First I heard of "green is not a real color." Could you explain?
Asadsadsadclown
I think he means brown. Aka Reddish Green. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color
FuzzyX
I was wrong when it was the colour purple which should be a mix of red and blue but two colours are at different ends of the spectrum meaning there is no purple wavelength. I guess by green I was thinking of dogs or cats.
StarscreamAndHutch
I would learn japanese from
These guys and Minxy.
The awkward pauses here crack me up. Seems like every language has a there they’re their.
SirRichardOfHead
For real! The left dude's got some quality shit eating grin, too!
Vebrandsson
Ah but does every language have a "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." And yes that is a grammatically correct English sentence.
rusrsdude
Yes, why wouldn't every language have something like that? Words are just sounds we made up to communicate. Grammar and spelling are not absolutes either as slangs develop naturally throughout the course of time. Definitions tend to shift over time as well, a terrific example would be... terrific. It used to mean terror but now we use it to describe something as great.
WackyWavingFlailingArmTubeMan
Ong bestie never been a more Sigma than u fam. Gramtaro isn't always busin' fr fr. Gotta slide sometime no cap
rusrsdude
Exactly, look at that abomination, it's great
teratrain
i mean... there's that one chinese poem that's nothing but different intonations of "shi" over and over
Vebrandsson
Languages with tonial differences seem perplexing and impractical to me given that human voices have so much variance, change with age, and can be difficult to use the proper tones or inflections when you are unwell. I can't imagine how badly I'd screw up trying to speak such a language.
Misteree8
Eh, and yet. Over a billion people speak some dialect of Chinese/korean/Japanese etc. You get used to it. Like any tool you learn and slowly grasp the nuances
Vebrandsson
Oh yes I get that. My personal inability to wrap my head around such language is my own problem. I generally barely speak English, and when it comes to other languages well as one of my Spanish teachers once said I can communicate and that's generally more important than getting all the nuances right most of the time.