Just one week from now, I'll be in Japan, trying to navigate an airport and meeting my host family for the first time. I'm getting so nervous! I've never left the country before, aside from a couple hours in Canada seeing Niagara Falls. That hardly counts. This will be my first time going somewhere where I won't be able to reliably communicate with everyone. I mean, my Japanese isn't bad, and I'm a quick learner, but there's no way I can prepare for everything I'll want to say or that other people will tell me. And after all, learning is the whole point of the trip.
It also doesn't help that I've been learning the Tokyo dialect (the primary national dialect) but I'll be staying in Osaka. From what I've listened to before, it seems like almost half the words and phrases they use in the Kansai region are exclusive to that area, and I hardly know any of them. This will definitely be a challenge. On the plus side, they're a lot more direct in Kansai than the typical Japanese, so I don't have to be so worried about offending people if I don't do the whole "say no without saying no" thing properly. Although they might think of me as being all high-and-mighty for speaking only the Tokyo dialect instead of their own, but that can't really be helped.
I still haven't figured out what gift to bring my host family, and I haven't been told anything about them yet. I was supposed to hear something during this past week, but I haven't. I'll probably end up buying some generic box of chocolates or something if I don't find out anything soon.
That's it for now. Until next time.
I don't think there will be serious dialect problems. Most foreigners in Japan learn standard Japanese, not a dialect. Japanese people will not be surprised or think that you are trying to be "high-and-mighty" for speaking Tokyo dialect in the Kansai Region. In fact, they will probably adjust their speech when they talk to you to be standard Japanese (or at least as close to it as they know how to come). Young people, in particular, mostly speak standard Japanese, particularly to foreigners.
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