Why Naruto's Japanese Sounds Weird (Updated)
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2020
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Naruto speaks pretty weird Japanese and uses a somewhat made-up expression. In this video, I explain Naruto's "ttebayo".
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This is an updated version with extra information. I also got rid of some parts that people didn't seem to be interested in.
Reading Naruto's subtitles, I realised that what the subtitles say is often different from what the characters are actually saying in Japanese. If you want to truly understand Japanese anime, it's best to watch it in Japanese.
So if you want to learn Japanese with me, I can send you some Japanese lessons where I teach you the kind of Japanese that Japanese people actually speak. Click here and subscribe bit.ly/3ntN9Vx
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Dattebayo
Yuta-San
dattebayo!
サンキューな、ユタさん。フランスからの挨拶だってばよ！ニヒヒ。
Could you maybe talk about Japanese dialects
The “tteba” makes me think Naruto is meant to come off as very hyperbolic. Like saying “I’m starving!” Instead of “I’m hungry.”
That's actually true, and the way he uses those words, even though they're not commonly used in JP language, is almost identical to how other asian languages, including mandarin and shanghai dialect that I'm familiar with, is expressed. It's like adding a word similar to 'very', but it adds 'emphasis' so its not 'literally' like adding the word 'really' or 'very'
tteba in itself more than anything, points to the 'point' or statement in itself, similar to the phrase 'datte sa', which is sometimes translated as 'so he /she says' or 'thats how it is' or 'so it is'.
He emphasizes everything as if he's being ignored and has been saying it several times. It's like "I've been telling you I'm hungry!" Even though he said it for the first time...
Interesting how it was adapted for the english and latin-american dubbs for the series, those were "believe it!" and "¡de veras! (for real!)" respectively. I guess they wanted to keep that quirk.
@@saviomulapi7499 That's Narutos childhood though, lonely and "ignored" as an approachable kid, so it fits his character?
CrazyPangolinLady Yeah, it emphasizes what is said. Like an exclamation point you actually say.
I think it's actually genius and super fitting for Naruto's character after hearing your explanation. Being frustrated and unable to explain himself could stem from his childhood of being constantly shunned and misunderstood. And よ being an expression used to urge others to do something together would definitely be something he says a lot during his struggles to make friends
That's great.
Thanks bro for this interpretation. It’s pretty no genius.
So it's basically the anime version of something like Zoinks.
It is unless it’s required to make the sentence work ... lol. Inconsistent remember.
Jinkies!!
Right or how he says "like" at the beginning of sentences where most people probably wouldn't. At one point it was a common 60's teenager slang thing but nowadays it's pretty exclusive to Shaggy lol.
Narf!
@@paulinadelao3259 you'd be surprised
The dub for Naruto is an interesting case. Initially they used "Believe it" as a way to adapt it, but ultimately dropped it. They didn't realise it would eventually become a major plot point so slowly introduced it again by having him add "You know?" to the end of sentences, even in places that it sounds odd. That was a successful way of bringing that quirk into English, it's just a shame it wasn't consistent from the beginning.
Thank you for this comment! I'm rewatching Naruto from the beginning (never finished it because omg taking forever and when plot was actually happening, I confused it with filler..) but I always had assumptions on Naruto's parents. Don't quite know how a phrase would be inherited... but I guess I'll see~
Here in Brazil almost every portuguese translation uses "Tô certo", which in informal language could maybe mean "Believe it"
In Latin American Spanish we used '¡De veras!' which means 'That's true' or 'It's true' or 'For real!'.
I think they should have switched it up: "You know!?" "For real!" "You know what I'm saying!?" "Believe me!" "Believe it!" instead of using just "believe it." One time he was about to pass out and said "believe it" and I was like come on guys... localize this better... that might be why they stopped.
Russian subs just haven't "dattebayo" at all :(
Naruto as a child constantly longing for attention and no one listens to him so that "tteba" became his catchphrase....always emphasizing his speeches
That why he is one my favorite character
this hits hard
No
Naruto kuns mom had a similar vocal tic that she said all the time as well だってばよ
@@gaarasama1719 I am pretty sure it's "tebayo (ってばよ)" and not "dattebayo (だってばよ)"
@@childbeater331 actually hers was ttebayo or ってばよ
I wasn't writing hers in my comment that you replied to I was saying Naruto kuns thing
Thanks for trying to help however. :B
Could you maybe do a video on japanese dialects
Yeah like an Osaka dialect lol
I've always wondered why the stereotypical Yakuza had the voice they have.
Yes please
That would be awesome (especially a couple of words about Kansai dialect)
I want to learn the Osaka or Hokkaido dialect.
Hello Yuta-san. I am Japanese and I heard my grandfather say “dattebayo” at least twice, usually when he’s angry. He’s a traditionalist (the generation before boomer). It’s true we don’t hear Japanese people say that phrase often but it may still escape from our mouths from time to time 😄 I remember blurting out “ttebayo” at least once but never “dattebayo” 🍥
Wow so maybe it's also an old sounding phrase?
he's a naruto fan.
Character wise, it makes sense for Naruto to feel like he's never 'heard' and perhaps just got used to saying "I already told you" like a habit.
Kushina, his mom, before she died said that she hoped he didn't pick up her weird speech pattern of "tteba ne"
Naruto's rival - Konohamaru, says "kore" after most of his sentences
No one:
Yuta’s shirt: 🔴⚫️🔴⚫️🔴⚫️🔴⚫️🔴
"No one"? Guess again! Master Pain/Betty did the same thing in Kung Pow ^^
Kushina : tteba ne
Naruto: tteba yo
Boruto: tteba sa
😂
runs in the family, apparently.
@Lucifer ~ baka yarou ttebayo... 😛🤣
yassss!!!
ttebasa best tteba.
Im Japanese and fluent, very impressed by all of his clear explanations of really important bits of the japanese language that’s quite hard to explain, bravo! 👏👏
@Brooklyn Vasquez ?
In Brazil, sometimes this stuff goes through the localization/translation process.
instead of saying "tteba yo", he says "Tô certo" which is a way of saying "estou certo" which translates to "i'm right" for men because almost every word in portuguese has a gender.
in Brazillian Naruto he's not saying anything wrong, he just has what we call a linguistic addiction, it's almost impossible to live without knowing a single person without it.
in English you have people that say the word "like" about 50 times in a sentence, and that's the same as BR Naruto.
In the Spanish (Latin America) version of Naruto he ends his sentences with “de veras” which means “really”, he uses it to confirm things like “I eat ramen, really”, “I’am gonna punch you, really” and in this case we sometimes use that “de veras” but it’s more common for a children to use it, sometimes his sentences sound weird and sometimes they doesn’t.
I think this weird use of grammar forms is basically considered as Yakuwarigo 役割語. Weird forms that enables to recognize easily the character or the feature of the character
at least we got something in the english version with "believe it" which was also super iconic for his character
Donovan Jones but it also gives me ptsd from the german intro *shudders*
@@neekk040Don't make me think about that again 😭
@@Spideyman.w sasookeh is really cool
@@neekk040 MAKE IT STOP!!! 😭
The WESTERN example of all of this is when some people usually repeats some word after telling something over and over again, for example some people always say "So on and so on" or "You know what i mean", or " Or Something", some people usually have that tendency when are nervous and are telling something
ってば only sounds natural coming out of Junko Takeuchi-san's mouth.
What about Kankuro from Naruto? He also has that way of ending his sentences with "jan" which sounds really cool to me but I don't really know much about it
Hey!! I know it's a bit too late, but anyways, Kankuro's way of speaking carries distinctive Yokohama dialect! The "jan" at the end of the sentence is an example of that, and it helps to emphasize the "toughness" of his character because said accent is often used by biker gang members or punks. Also, it shows that he's from a different village than Konoha, where they speak the standard Tokyo dialect
One of the main reasons I only watch anime and play games in Japanese. So much personality from those small things!
In the German version Naruto says "For real!" (🇩🇪 "Echt jetzt!") for ttebayo.
The fact that Goku's voiced by an old lady, tells you a lot
How? Naruto is voiced by an older lady as well...
And thats why I love dbz
Yo you're the guy who comments on every single video I watch.
@@bingoringo5257 it's just mean you two likes anime
You are everywhere. *Everywhere*
Could his “tteba yo” be translated as, “...ya know?” “I mean...” “...I say..” “...I tell ya..” or “...I’m tellin ya!” etc, or something like that, depending on circumstances? “Believe it!” sounds like a bad translation, and based on all the different contexts and ways characters reacted in different situations, and just the difficulty of translating Japanese into English/range of translations for most short phrases/sayings, it seems like it could have this range of translation depending on context... ?
Its funny because a Naruto is one of the few anime where verbal ticks were at least partially preserved. Probably most equivalently preserved was Deidara's "hmm!" that he would end sentences with sometimes, along with his "Katsu!" which, if I've researched correctly is supposed to be threatening shout, was translated to "Ha!"
This is in One Piece as well where pretty much everyone has a signature expression or catch frase
I always enjoyed the way the Kenshin Shimura spoke, since is the old way japanese was spoken.
Thanks for making this update and explaining the constituent parts more clearly!
That Japanese Man Yuta is the type of Man who teaches the type of Japanese that Japanese people actually speak today.
The addition of the superfluous word Naruto uses actually makes sense if you compare it to similar sentences spoken under similar circumstances by english teenagers.
An example would be " why is it bloody well me who always gets hit?" When Naruto says his version he seems to be conveying that he is upset irritated frustrated and annoyed by the seeming injustice.
This is a good point. Could it be said that "tteba" is like saying "why is it *me* who keeps on getting punched", with "me" in a rather exasperated tone?
@@alexjenkins1079 The particle が (ga) is what puts the emphasis on "me" in this sentence
@@yumemitai612 But don't は (wa) already do that?
@@guscfer157 If you said なんで俺は殴られるんだってばよ (nande ore *wa* nagurareru n da tteba yo), that's basically asking "why the punching?" But if you say なんで俺が殴られるんだってばよ(nande ore *ga* nagurareru n da tteba yo), that's asking "why am *I* getting punched (instead of someone else)?"
It's like Meowth or a cat anime character saying "nya" at the end or in between words. Now that I realize it, this nuance of adding words is similar to the noise monsters in games are probably trying to express, especially like in games where you raise and take care of a pet-monster. It is that monster's signature sound/expression.
I wonder if that’s why Moogles go “Kupo,” and the animals in Animal Crossing have their catchphrases. I thought it was a replacement for “desu” (which I also don’t understand, so that might be wrong.)
That's probaby just because Meowth is a cat and "nya" or "nyan" is a cat sound/meow in Japanese.
@@CrazyPangolinLady what kind of animal are they?
Thank you for that breakdown, very interesting!
As an Italian learning Japanese the most difficult thing about anime is the fact that sometimes words sound very poorly articulated. Maybe it's just me but even when I could actually understand the sentence I end up hearing something different. Like when the little kid said"貴様が何かしたんだな、これ"
I actually heard "貴様がなんかしだがら、これ" ...which of course doesn't make sense. Since Japanese has tons of different expressions I am always confused whether I've just heard a new expression or maybe I've completely misheard it...
I mean, that just happens with any language when you listen to native speakers
This is a common thing with all languages. In English, we compress the sentence "You know what I mean" to "Yah'mean". It's the same concept in all languages not just Japanese.
I wish this had a timestamp. I’m just coming back to this video after months and forgot where the clips are, lol
in spoken japanese some letters go silent, sometimes that might be why you don't understand what they're saying 🙂
that's all I know that might be helpfull haha 😅
Was just trying to help a friend with some voice acting techniques I discovered oh, and somehow I ended up over here which I find fascinating. And a lot of those words do add character. Makes me kind of wonder, if the writers think about the character first or actually pay attention to the voice actor’s mannerisms when playing their roles in how they speak before scripting/writing.
Yuta do you have any insight on Sakura's "shannaro" vs Sarada's occasional "shannaroga"?
This one is easy
@@ReijiArisu1211 Very helpful!
LMAO, this thread.
This really help me in real conversation with japanese
did you use it da tte ba yo?
"Tteba yo" I always thought was him saying "Believe it!" ._. and that was the whole catch phrase part of it. I absolutely love all the different things I've learned in the last few hours just from your videos :D
Naruto here in Brazil uses another expression that is "To certo!" something like "I'm right!". Idk, I like the portuguese version a lot, many people say that the translations of anime to portuguese are pretty good and accurate!
Doesn't Brazil actually have a large Japanese population
@@evanwatkins421 yes, the biggest outside of Japan!
UM DIA EU VOU SER HOKAGE, TÔ CERTO!!!
Naruto :Dattebayo
Killerbee : bakayaro Konoyaro
Me: I don't have Toilet paper
Sakura: Sasuke kun
Hinata: Naruto kun
Sasuke: Kono usuratonkachi ga
Shikamaru: Mendokuse
Keep up the Great work 👌
funny how they translated that into "believe it!" in english which is also sort of odd in english. in the end of it all naruto is just different, in a good way :)
i know almost nothing about the japanese language and I figured it out somehow naruto speaks in a very unique way cuz he ends every sentence with ttebayo
I enjoyed this video. I am going to try to get back on track with learning Japanese from you~!
BTW i love how you kept changing your shirt color xD
This voice tics are really common in Naruto like a lot of characters have one like sakura says "Shannaro" a lot and Konahamaru has one also but i forgot what it was😂
kore...its addressed in the video. Deidara also says "un" at the end of most sentences.
Yuta, if i may give an advice: I watched some of your Why x´s japanese sounds weird vids, and i noticed that every time you anounce your japanese lessons you get very fast (because you are enthusiastic :) ) and it feels kinda weird to me that you continue speaking in your normal tempo afterwards. Idk if it is only me but i wanted to say that.
Keep going on with yor good job :)!
Luffy also said dattebayo when ussop village was about to be raid
very interesting thank you
I dont speak Japanese but after watching more than Naruto I noticed that he was the only one who said this and I kind of dismissed it until I found this video so thank this was cool
Have you notice at the beginning of the video with the white background and the red shirt, it looks like the Japanese flag. Just pointing it out there.
Can you make a similar video describing the speech of the nopon in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2? They seem to add random stuff onto their sentences too.
Maybe it will be too simple for a whole video but... it would be nice
i actually understand what you mean. great explanation.
the first time i heard “tteba” is from waver velvet in fate/zero
Why is it translated as "believe it" in english dub?
Because "Dattebayo" isn't an actual word in Japanese, but rather a feeling or exclamation. Believe it isn't a great translation, but isn't the worst way to translate it.
Additionally, it was only "believe it" for most of the first season. Since Shippuden, it's now "y'know?"
In German it's translated as "Echt jetzt" which means "really" or "for real".
@@SupremeShittyCraps Most of the international dubs are direct translations of the English scripts, that's why the quality varies so much between dubs, its a translation of a translation. I wish we'd go back to adapting the japanese scripts but only popular shows like Dragon Ball Super get that treatment.
glimmerkepu catalan tv (region in Spain) always translate from japanese.
It makes so much sense that Naruto talks this way. It’s like grammatically incorrect or weird, but it makes sense for him because he wasn’t only a child that was starving for attention, but he was also a child that had no real human connection until he was older. So it makes sense that he’d talk weird, since no one really taught him how to talk “correctly”.
Naruto's mother: -dattebane
Naruto: -dattebayo
Naruto's son: -dattebasa
I love it❤️.
Funny, Naruto was my first anime when I was a kid (I’m over 30 now) and I always thought the datte ba yo thing was just stylistic for emphasis. My brain interpreted as a “hey” or “eh” (for Canadians) or something like that. Tho I didn’t understand Japanese that’s how my brain decided to make sense of it. I guess is because in most languages nobody says the same expression to end a sentence unless it’s completely irrelevant to the sentence in the first place
kagura in gintama also has the -aru,it’s weird but cute hehehe
That's her Chinese accent !
I didnt notice it untill i started to watch naruto.
Now i hear every single added word from every character :)
I only started to notice it like 200 episodes into Shippuuden lol
One Piece has many characters that end their sentences with something unique
Otama from OnePiece has this "yansu" at the end of her sentences.
So, tteba is something people say when they are frustrated at not being understood, and yo is used to soften a sentence. It communicates Naruto's isolation and desire to fit in.
There's this short joke I heard once, about a dog who thinks his name is "No! Bad dog!" because that's what he hears all the time. Naruto is always misbehaving, which is probably very frustrating for the adults in his life. At the same time, he's ignored and shunned because of Kyuubi. So adults are always scolding him, and also any time he has something to say, he feels the need to emphasize it. So could it be that at a very young age, he developed the impression that "-tteba" was just the way normal people spoke, since grown-ups were always saying it to him?
I like that, if only it worked for what the dub chose as a stand in. I wonder if there's even a phrase that could work better than "Believe it"
Well, "Believe it!" ended up turning into "Ya know!"
There is a Pokemon Sun and Moon episode in which the characters go to Malie City. The city has a traditional Japanese theme and one of the characters they meet speaks pretty much like Naruto. I recognized it because of the particle. There is also a character in Overlord, Hamusuke, who uses "gozaru." It is interesting because I have heard other characters using this word.
ござる is often used for samurai characters.
and otaku ("geeky") characters as well.
Looks like _tteba_ is just kinda a redundant thing that doesn't even need to be translated but it is just catchy for the character behavior since removing _tteba_ is still making the sentence correct, ofc if there is still _yo_ in that sentence
There's also a few characters I've seen stick 'dane' on the end of sentences!
So generally speaking, do most of these anime catchphrases / speaking patterns occur at the end of sentences?
I'm not sure how these little character tics can be added to English. The simplest way might be to add a random expression each one says under certain contexts. They tried in English with Naruto saying "believe it!" which kind of works for his Determinator status, but for the characters I'm not sure what English expression could be put in the translation. If what these characters are saying is odd Japanese but grammatically correct, there isn't a good way to translate these at all. It would be easier if these characters were not speaking grammatically correct Japanese, then the translators can just chuck in a phrase and fuse it with the sentence. Such a sentence wouldn't be correct, but if the source isn't that's OK too.
This is great
I wanna learn more about it
Naruto was the first Anime I watched in Japanese. It was the first time I really heard Japanese and after like 4 episodes, I already noticed that Naruto ended his sentences in a unique way.
Naruto: Dattebayou 😆
Sakura: shandaroouuuu
Kenshin: - de gozaru/de gozariyo
Jojo: Yare yare daze
That was actually pretty clear to understand
Can you make a video about other expressions from the Naruto series like Sakura's "Shannarō" or Sasuke's "Usuratonkachi"?
Sasuke's just mean "loser" referring to Naruto. I dunno about Sakura tho
It could be the authors way of depicting dialect
i think hanamaru from love live counts too zura (she uses zura!! amazing right zura!)
2:37 Satomi Arai, 3:09 Keiji Fujiwara, Naruto's way of speaking is his personality/character.
In the early 2000s when I watched Naruto through fansubs ("pirate distributors"), they translated Naruto's sentences with a literal "dattebayo" at the end. In the first episode, they added a note in the subtitles you could pause to read that explained it a little bit. For example, the subtitles would say "Why am I the one getting punched _dattebayo_ ", and I got used to just reading it.
Would Boruto's Japanese sound even more weird, since he uses "dattebasa"?
or Kushina's dattebane
@ᴅɪxɪᴇ ɴᴏʀᴍᴏᴜs that's the whole point of the video... that's why I'm asking how Boruto's would look...
@@Gachodus uP
I believe it's just convention among native Japanese speakers to not layer too many ending particles or phrases together since it'd start to sound too "wordy" in a way. Like Yuta said, "tteba" is used when the speaker is complaining about something, and I'll also add:
"yo" usually adds emphasis to a statement, but can change depending on context;
"sa" has a tone of acceptance or annoyance, kinda like saying "that's just how it is" or "like I was saying";
"ne" is a bit more inquisitive since it expects an answer from the other person, but can be used rhetorically too.
etc.
These endings can help add a lot of flavor to the text, and they're pretty common among Japanese comedians who have their own quirks. Usually, I'd see translators either ignore these verbal tics or try something silly of their own, like seen in localized games and dubs.
da tte ba sa takes -sa from 'da sa' or 'tte sa' which can be used either beginning or end of a sentence, similar to characters going 'ne ne ne'
if you take dattebayo as 'ya know', I'd interpret dattebasa as either 'you should know' or 'wouldn't you know it', because it carries an expecting tone or attitude, basa seems to point at the 'obvious' or what is 'assumed' to be already seen by the audience/listeners while the speaker assumes the audience knows what he/she's talking about.
Es algo así como Flanders de los Simpsons, a veces termina las palabras con -irijillo.
I think discussion of how Naruto's odd way of speaking is often translated into English by official companies or by fans would add some clarity to what you're talking about here, and it would give you the chance to explain the nuances that you say are being lost when the process. You also don't really talk about how "tteba" would normally be translated, or where and how "yo" would be used; even briefly mentioning common uses would help make you easier to understand, especially to people who are just learning Japanese, or who have very little knowledge of the language.
Naruto is a strange case. In the english dub in the first part of naruto, tteba yo translates to 'believe it'. But in the second part it translates to 'ya know'. I wonder why?
Because it's a made up phrase it's doesn't have translation or meaning..
I know of a girl in celesital world filler arc in Fairy Tail, the girl who is a doctor. She says "でなす" instead of "です"
Lol, so yeah you literally hear it everywhere, if you listen.
The issue mentioned with English dubs and translations don't carry over those special characteristics that the original Japanese has is true. So, anime really is best when watching it in Japanese.
This is the very same issue you get when they dub animated movies from original English. Often or not the animated characters have characteristics of the voice actor, more so when they are famous/popular live action actors. Finding Nemo/Dory is a big example where the Japanese voices just lacked the character. This is the most of the time, whatever the original language was.
Oh, so it's like Tamama from Keroro Gunso putting "です" at the end of his sentences.
Someone help this guy, because if I’m gonna be the one to say it I, gonna get myself in trouble somehow
Yuta on this video: But wait, there's more!
Yuta : ttba
My brain : Onii chan ttebaaaa
I think Kuroko Shirai from A Certain Scientific Railgun uses "kashira" too.
can you make a video about video game vocabulary/slang ?
In portuguese they translated to "I'm right". Yes, it sounds even weirder in portuguese than it does in english actually.
My understanding is that Naruto was a lonely kid starved for attention so he uses "tteba" to emphasize everything he says as if he's said it before then adds "yo" for extra emphasis. "tteba" is to be used when you repeat yourself or, like Yuta said, someone isn't paying attention to you. Maybe you're telling someone you really saw a decapitated ghost and they're like "yeah yeah whatever" that's a "tteba" situation. But Naruto talks like that all the time then adds "yo" on top of it. I'd imagine speaking to someone like that must be annoying... and exhausting
Would you say something similar about Xigbar/Braig and his, “って話し/as if” expression in Kingdom Hearts II?
Hey Yuta. I really hope you respond to this because I am currently watching your video series on learning Japanese. I was wondering if you recommended any books or Japanese little kid shows that would teach me how to read Japanese and not just speak it. It would be great if you responded. Thank you
Another character that does this is in Naruto is Onoki. I noticed there’s one word he usually say a lot after every sentence no matter the context. I don’t know how spell it but it sounds like *”Ja-ze”*
Sakura also uses "しゃーんなろー" as her unique catchphrase. I always thought it was cool. Her daughter too.
So, to see if I understand.
I guess if there was a fan translation of Dragonball Z Abridged nappas "I can't...believe it." joke would actually be fairly easy to translate, since I'd assume he'd just slip tteba yo in at the last second for the naruto reference instead.
Can you do Misaka Mikoto from toaru kagaku no railgun how she speaks Japanese next time if you get a chance to upload in a channel?
Please make a video on Himura Kenshin (from Rurouni Kenshin's) ～でござる. Having learnt the grammer 「でございます」from class, I wonder if there is any connection between the two. Thanks!
ござる is original of ございます. Grammatically speaking, they have same same function: you can replace ございます into ござる in any sentence. It was used still about 150 years ago(Edo era), and it is not used in modern Japanese at all.
However, in.fiction, it is sometimes used for characterize the character as a person of long ago like ninja or samurai. The case of Himura Kenshin is a typical usage for characterizing