I Love You in Japanese Dialets
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, each of which has its own traditions, dialects and accents. We find out how a "simple" word like "I love you" sounds different around Japan.
In a commercial campaign of a few years ago, presented by the Shiseido cosmetics company, that had proposed a video where 47 girls representing of their prefectures (after the well-publicized makeup obviously) said "I love you" in the dialect of their prefecture.
The campaign, although it had an obvious commercial goal, was interesting because it made us feel like a word as "I love you" can make real different sounds and words depending on where you are in Japan.
In Japanese the word usually used to say "I Love You" is daisuki 大好 き and is used to indicate love and affection to both your partner or a friend, family or even your own animal, but you will see how this changes depending on which area of Japan we are, and it is very interesting, as I always thougth of all dialects in the world.
As you can see the variety of ways to pronounce a word so dear to us is interesting, and it makes us understand how Japan even in its small shades, has so much in common with the rest of the world, that is, the local identity carried forward in the words even more "simple".
All of us are accustomed to dialects, wherever we come, there is always a ways of saying different depending on the region or even the city we come from. These are the differences that make us interesting, which make a culture and language a fascinating thing.
The Japanese themselves, when this video was broadcast, were amazed at the great variety of ways in which "I Love You" were declined, even at a short distance from where they lived.
This time, we can say that a commercial campaign has been useful not only to sell, but to provide us with a very interesting break from Japanese culture.