Asian Poses and Ken Tanaka
onan pointed out this site: asian poses. It was funny, and odd. But then the jason who is really jason pointed out this youtube video of Ken Tanaka explaining how to speak fluent Japanese without saying anything:
That made me want to know more about Ken Tanaka, so I ended up watching his first videoblog entry:
And I was thinking, wow. This guy’s pretty interesting. Is he real?
Um, well:
More discussion at The Japanicity of Ken Tanaka and the Social Media Community of Youtube.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Yes. Video blog #13 makes it seem 90% likely that Ken Tanaka was not raised by Japanese parents. Or even if he was, he can speak just fine without the Japanese accent.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Once upon a time I worked for a MRI mfgr that was eaten by Toshiba a few years ago. When the Japanese execs came in I would hear them talking amongst themselves.
One word I often heard was “annnnoooooooo”
Eventually I asked my Japanese/American friend what it meant.
It means “ummmmmmm” =)
Just like “ah so” is short for “ah so desu ka” which means “I understand” or “that is the way of it” (it sounds like ahsodeska)