Who is the most fluent japanese speaker you've ever seen?

I can think of a handful of Japanese people… :thinking:

yes this is a joke

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Since a teenager I loved Megadeth and saw themnalso live in 1997. So the band constellation at this time means very much to me. The guitar player left two yeara later
In 2006 I lived in Japan for almost a year, watcjed television and who appeared? The former guitar player. He was interviewed and he replied without any problems in Japanese. It was grotesque. I did not really checked what he did after he left the band. So it seemed, he became quite popular in Japan with his music and learned Japanese as well. Awesome guy. Name is Marty Friedman

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I had no idea!

I did a quick youtube search and came up with this, sounds pretty impressive!

ちょっとうらやましい

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That’s interesting. Doesnt he have a patreon teaching pitch accent?

To be fair, most Japanese learners could not record a video like Dogen in any number of takes. I’ve heard him unscripted and he was fine.

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His flow sounds very natural, but definitely the accent is pretty noticeable. Especially the consonant lengths (a bit short at times), aspiration and the “shi”, “chi” sounds at times stick out to me.

Used to listen to a lot of Megadeth when I was younger, so pretty interesting! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Cathy Cat from the youtube channel “Ask Japanese” is pretty impressive! I believe she’s lived in Japan for about 8 years now.

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My coworker is a non-native speaker who used to translate for a living. He took the grammar test meant for natives (similar to our SAT) and scored in the 80th percentile. He’d been studying for something like 10 years at the time, and living in Tokyo for a while. Several native speakers have told me he speaks better Japanese than they do.

I’m told his accent and word choice are almost perfect, but they can still tell he’s a non-native speaker because of the way he pronounces some words.

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白鵬 翔( はくほう しょう)


I don’t always like him, but his Japanese is very good, and he is superhuman.

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Cathy Cat is also a really good English speaker. For a German her accent is pretty unnoticeable.

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Hi @Carlijn! Welcome to the community. Thanks for sharing and I hope we’ll see more of you here :slight_smile: @joeni

はい、猫さん!

\textcolor{pink}{\huge \textsf{WELCOME! ^-^}}
@Carlijn
Even if you’ve been a member for a while, so aren’t really new hehe
welcome gif - crabigator

Take the time to check out the FAQ and GUIDE if you haven’t already…
…but you probably have, because you seem like you’re diligent and awesome like that ^-^

There’s also a lot of good stuff on the forum to help you…
…that you’ve likewise probably already seen, but it still worth mentiioning!

The Ultimate Guide for WK
The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
The New And Improved List Of API and Third Party Apps

I hope that you continue to enjoy WaniKani that your worship of the Crabigator is eternal!

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My Japanese teacher.

not necessarily fluent, but i noticed red jacket guy ‘from usa’ had a native sounding emphasis or timing of words https://youtu.be/UY6r34O5PNE?t=121 2:01 (also, unrelated funny ‘ehhhh’ at 4:34)

the irony is WK(tofugu) already made an interview about this Marty Friedman Interview, Why He Moved to Japan

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NONE.
Unless i see him/her on a live stream taking Japanese and not recording scripted lines for God-knows how many times until it sounds “fluent” and giving you false impression that the person who you are viewing is really good at speaking Japanese.
You can also see it in pretty much any content not just Japanese, for example movie or video games review.

Only one i currently acknowledged is a nearby local language Japanese teacher, cause i attend her class twice a week.

Do not see the irony, but interesting find. Thanks.

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Peter Barakan’s Japanese is amazing. A Japanese I write to had heard him on the radio and was surprised to find he was a foreigner not a native. :sweat_smile:

IDK about ‘most’ but pulling off convincing Kansai-ben while explaining music theory, singing and playing finger style guitar at the same time is unique. He talks slow and clear but I think it’s a delivery choice. I see he teaches in Texas ironically.

I probably have the most respect for the PM/presidential translators, that looks like an intense gig. You really need to know the topics to get the nuances and have to do it in real time between foreign leaders. I would assume most grow up bilingual to get accepted at that level.

well the irony was more with crihak’s reply, being a heavy wanikani user yet somehow not noticing the wanikani team’s own interview, just found it amusing

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