Your Guide to J-Vloggers: Bobby Judo

This is Bobby Judo. He is episode two of YGTJV.

Bobby Judo is a cool dude. I only discovered him more recently, so I know less of his background (for instance, why he's actually in Japan). What I do know about Bobby Judo is that he's American, and he's way better at Japanese than I am. He's been living in Japan for over seven years, but that's cheating.

I enjoy watching his videos because I can count on him to be honest. Whether he's being honest about himself, Japanese culture, or whatever else, it feels good to get the real story. It also feels way more personal than a lot of the J-vlogs I'm used to seeing because he's so honest. It is a little jarring to hear such direct things being said in Japanese.

He mainly does vlogs to the camera, which is a great opportunity to hear a lot of spoken Japanese, and he also speaks very clearly in English, so I think it'd be a great choice for Japanese trying to learn English.

I also just learned that he makes culinary videos in English on Bobby Judo Cooks.

Previous issue of YGTJV: Sharla

Check him out and tell him I said hi!

Your Guide to J-Vloggers: Sharla

Introducing: Your Guide to J-Vloggers! Or YG2JV, if we want to be cool.

Today's featured vlogger is Sharla.

Sharla is Canadian and completing her degree abroad in Japan. She's studied Japanese for probably 10 years, in my estimation (from what she's said in her videos). Sharla is fun and a good teacher of Japan and Japanese culture: she shows interesting foods, restaurants, festivals, etc. Even how to order pizza in Japan! Sharla updates regularly, probably once a week, and she's one of my favorites. Check her out!

Castle Radio/Delicast

I've got a treat for you all today. Ironically, I found this awesome music radio station through searching for "Japanese talk radio." What that lead me to was delicast.com, which is an immense resource for tons of radio stations, not only in Japan, but all over the world. I thought "Castle Radio" sounded interesting, so I clicked, and my life has never been the same.

Fukuchiyama Castle Radio is pretty much the bee's knees. Here's why:

• It's a legit radio station broadcasting live out of Japan. I should also mention that it is broadcasting out of a place called Fukuchiyama, which will gain you knowledge points--even my friend from Tokyo hadn't heard of it. And no, we foreigners are not just saying "Fuji yama" in out weirdo accent.
• They play mostly music, but also have conversation and news pieces sometimes, as well as ADS! It's usually the same three ads over and over (or at least the same three companies), but it's a great opportunity for me to keep picking up words and figuring out what exactly they're saying.
• I love their music! I've always loved older stuff, so this station is perfect for me. I did hear them play Nishino Kana's "Believe" once, which is super-current, but otherwise the stuff rarely sounds more recent than the 80's.
  Nishino Kana - Believe (2013)
   
• This is great because it allows me to be more familiar with their standards. Once I've heard a song two or three times, I know it's basically their equivalent of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" or "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart." Here's a good one!

The link I gave above for Castle Radio is to their main site. This is because I have issues with delicast on my home computer. Just look for the romaji "Simul Radio" or the katakana サイムル放送 and you'll be good to go. I use their site on Firefox, which isn't my normal browser, because their site doesn't seem to get along with Chrome. Pro tips, y'all!

Do you know any good radio stations? Let me know your favorites. And if you give Castle Radio a try, Shazam your favorite songs and send them my way!

I found a female J-vlogger!

Ask and I shall receive.

My conversation partner and I were talking about Fukuoka, and he was telling me about their accent and how kawaii it sounds. I figured there would be 0 results in English, so I searched for 「福岡弁 」(Fukuoka dialect) on YouTube, and who did I find?

Riko-san!

SUGOI

I really wanted to find a girl vlogger, not just for the sake of variety, but also so I wouldn't end up sounding like a boy! I love Sharla, Micaela, and Mimei, but none of them are native Japanese. Not only was I excited to find Riko's Fukuoka videos, but she is actually a pretty prolific vlogger and is still very active! I hit the jackpot. Maybe in the future, we can all try to translate her videos :)

Suru: your new best friend

Suru (する--no kanji. We love those!), for those of you who don't know, means, "to do." As you can imagine, this is an immensely useful verb. Not only is it used a heck of a lot, but you can also attach it onto nouns, and together they become a verb. As a student, you may have been taught 「勉強をする（べんきょうをする）」(benkyou wo suru), which means "to study." "Benkyou" (勉強) just means "study" on its own. Adding "wo" (を) allows suru to modify benkyou, so it becomes "doing study."

Now, this is the correct way to say "study." This word, suru, makes hundreds of nouns into verbs in proper Japanese. But this post is here to draw you to the survival aspect of suru. In a pinch, this verb can help you get your meaning across. If you know a noun but not the related verb, try slapping 「をします」after it, and the listener should understand. Case and point: if I wanted to say I was driving a car, I couldn't. I don't know the verb for driving. But doing a/the car (車をします/kuruma wo shimasu), don't you think the listener would understand? And I'm sure they'd also teach you the proper way to say it afterward.

Obviously, don't make a habit of it. But as I will say time and time again, language is for communicating, for getting a meaning across. It is not about writing essays. That comes later.