Comments | linguaphiles: Is anyone but me watching "Heroes"?

sparkofcreation in linguaphiles

Is anyone but me watching "Heroes"?

Nov 06, 2006 21:34

(the one I've been meaning to ask since the start)
1. How's the Japanese? Do Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee sound like native speakers?

(and now the huge language-nerd question...)
2. Did anyone else see that red-haired girl start talking to Hiro in Japanese (in the trailer for next week) and think "Cool! A hero whose power is speaking other

television, japanese, linguaphile-ness

Comments 30

far_flung November 7 2006, 06:32:01 UTC

I have a friend who commented that Hiro's friend's Japanese sounded like it had a Korean accent to it.

tisoi November 7 2006, 07:22:38 UTC

Well, with a last name like Lee he probably is.

arsinyk November 7 2006, 08:15:13 UTC

2. Yes! I'm not the only one who thought that. :D

sparkofcreation November 7 2006, 14:13:06 UTC

Oh, good. My husband has been making fun of me.

ladysunflow November 7 2006, 08:34:59 UTC

One reason why I love Heroes is because Japanese isn't mangled there (as it is in many, many non-Japanese shows) ^___^ I only know a bit of Japanese, but I had a Japanese tutee, I watch a lot of jdramas and have pretty good ear for distinguishing (bad) acents, so... *gleee*

mechanicaltears November 7 2006, 08:58:21 UTC

I don't know Japanese, so I don't have any idea about your first question. However, for your second, I totally thought the same thing! How awesome would that be?! lol

sparkofcreation November 7 2006, 14:13:30 UTC

My husband has been making fun of me. I feel better.

I want that power! Or Micah's.

creatingmyths November 7 2006, 22:07:22 UTC

1. I don't know how fluent the Japanese is (as I'm only a student of the language studying for three years in the US without any real exposure to the langauge beyond exchange students, teachers, and certain animated features), but Oka's Japanese is understandable. I caught most of what he was saying without the subtitles, which caused much glee and squeeing on my part.

alessandriana November 8 2006, 06:19:48 UTC

Dude, I totally did the same thing (re: the subtitles). I was watching the second episode, and there was this short conversation in Japanese, and about a minute afterwards I just stopped the episode, rewound, and went... dude, there weren't any subtitles! I totally got it without the subtitles!

And there was much squeeing.

[/geek]

But yeah, it's really only Oka's japanese that I can do that with on the show... he has a really clear accent, for lack of a better word. The translator guy? I was sitting there scratching my head.