Hi. I'm currently trying to find some variety shows or radio podcasts for females, just to get used to the female speech, as it seems most out there are for men. Maybe I'm not looking around enough. I know about Marimoeo, and I like them a lot, but I was hoping to find more variety/different topics discussed by women. I would be fine with late teens, but I'd rather listen to something in the age range of the 20s and 30s, as they seem close enough to be able to use similar styles of speech. It's not a strict requirement (I guess it'll be fine if outside of that range) but I'm trying to focus on speech and output, and don't want to sound off, like I'm speaking like a teen, or a much older woman. I'm not being disrespectful here, it's not my intention at all, and I hope I'm not offending anyone. I just want to be able to emulate how women in my age group talk. I know I should go out there and look for someone to speak with, and it is my intention to do so, but I'm currently juggling a pretty hefty load of school, rotations, and work, so listening to something on my own time will give me that added flexibility, and I'd be able to do it more than just talk once or twice a week to someone. At least until the next few months are up and I have more time to spend on actually speaking.

I apologize if this has already been discussed elsewhere. If you have any ideas that you may share, or at least point me in the right direction, or to the right thread, I would really, really appreciate it.

So thanks a lot!

こんばんわー

(I had never heard of them before so, まりもえお is all new to me.

This won't help you find more but Marimoeo self identified as 道産子女子高生のしゃべり when they started.

Which means:
1. They have been doing this for 10 years!
2. They called themselves 道産子
3. And they self identified as 女子高生.

They sound like a good mix of Japanese speakers, and Hokkaido people tend to speak a pretty un-accented sort of Japanese.

I'd love to hear the ones from when they were actually JK. It looks like those are no longer linked. It funny how much their writing has changed.

In terms of natural speech, I always recommend unscripted variety shows, but as you probably noticed it's all guys and 激しく演技しているアイドル. It's funny other than 友近, 和田アキ子, and (dating myself badly) 飯島愛, every woman is doing the Idol bit or the weird voice bit, on these shows, it seems.

I am surrounded by Japanese Women, and it is a fight not to end up speaking like a woman. A couple guys I have worked with don't really worry about it, and they sound odd.

こんにちは！

Thanks a lot for the input, kapalama! It's always interesting to see how people evolve and change over the years. I have no problems with them at all, and they're definitely within my target, but I was hoping for more variety in what I can listen to.

Thanks, though I take it you live in Japan? Lucky you!

No, I am in tourism.

Though the demographic has shifted somewhat from the 70-80% Women under 25 yo that was the case from the バブル時代, it's still the case, that Japanese women dominate the market both on the customer side, and on the worker's side.

Probably overall, anyway, but specifically so in warm weather destinations.

So I am surrounded by women, but not really by choice.

(悪いですけど, when I see the website linked down there, I am instantly reminded why living in Japan would be weird for me, and why working in the tourist market has always been slightly weird for me.)

(｡･ω･)ﾉﾞ ｺﾝﾁｬ♪

http://www.bayfm.co.jp/girls/
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This might be something for you. It describes itself as オーディションで選ばれた女子学生が、パーソナリティ、レポーター、製作スタッフとして作り上げているラジオプログラム.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5iX8sY...CRQ/videos
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My friend who's a part of that is also doing this program recently, interviewing people and talking about study abroad. This one isn't particularly girly or anything but it will always have at least one girl in her 20s speaking so if you liked the content it could be something to watch.

恋のから騒ぎ

Probably the BEST variety show ever if you want to hear a lot of diverse female speech. It's literally a show where Sanma talks to a bunch of girls, and all the girls discuss their love lives. A bit old but still good. Large range of age groups but mostly in their 20's I think.

Edit - Watch these: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIMvg9K...Dyw/videos

@Ash_s and @TheVinster: Thanks a lot! I still have to explore around through these links further, but from what I've seen, they look great.

I love this forum Everyone is so helpful.

@kapalama: How are you dealing with the massive influx of female speech? I'm just curious, since I know that when I hear something enough times, I'll start automatically speaking in a somewhat similar way.

First TheVinster nailed it.

I completely forgot about that 恋のから騒ぎ. I was going to recommend the London Boots show London Hearts and the panels they had on it, (which is why I mentioned 飯島愛 (Iijima Ai), because she was brilliant on that show), but really any panel like that is copying さんま.

When watching ignore the guests. They are just there for 番宣. The one in the panel are the ones to listen to, because they are shooting pretty straight, including right at each other. I never watched it enough to know if they have regular panel members or not though

And it's always fun to watch the MechaIke version (search めちゃいけ 騒ぎ) of that where everyone Okamura knows puts on a dress and does the same panel, and Okumura and Miyasako end up in a big fight at the end.

kapalama Wrote:And it's always fun to watch the MechaIke version (search めちゃいけ 騒ぎ) of that where everyone Okamura knows puts on a dress and does the same panel, and Okumura and Miyasako end up in a big fight at the end.

Found a bunch of videos on Youtube. Good suggestion!

I was unaware さんま was that well known. I'm missing out a lot on the variety-show genre. Oh well, at least now I know.

As far as how to avoid imitation.…

Advice I give is built around the fact that I started in and continue to work in places where, depending on the place, I never speak English so there is a limit to how helpful what I have to say is.

I guess part of it is that I learned pretty early on that a male speaking as a female (also known as speaking politely) gets ignored, and my job requires me to sometimes demand instant action in the name of safety. I learned the abrupt command forms pretty early and still use them way more than I probably should, so this was an early 'don't talk like a female' moment.

There are some hiccups that I simply cannot get rid of (I use the question marker 'の" way more than native male speaker does, and I cannot stop, though that has also entered young male speech to great degree).

But I guess in the end, I managed to find a male speakers in media, and stole mannerisms wholesale. If you watch enough Japanese variety, you know that 'gags' have a short half life, especially because everyone copies them. But in the tourist market, I get to recycle them way past their expiration date. At a certain point they recycle back into being 懐かしい for most people that hear them.

Bu beyond gags, there are ways that a 芸人 reacts to input that are unique to them, but that can be adopted wholesale as decent patterns of how to speak, and interface with people.

In this, you are out of luck. Lots of men have talk shows just because they are famous, (and almost no women, outside of idol groups do). Because of the sheer volume of content needed, these guys are simply thrown out there with a topic and a couple of guests and talk extemporaneously. So I have a way more choices than you do. Variety shows are useful because they have a lot of built in 字幕, because unrehearsed live shows get massaged into broadcast form not by re-recording but by subtitling the things the sound guys didn't get quite fully.

Woodsei Wrote:I was unaware さんま was that well known. I'm missing out a lot on the variety-show genre. Oh well, at least now I know.

さんま is one of the most powerful people in the entertainment side of things in Japan. I hve heard some put the big three of t least comedy as Sanma, Beat Takeshi, and Tamori.Watching 99's 岡村 grovel when Sanma's daughter came by やべっち 寿司 was a stark reminder of the power that connections wield in Japan.

He played it up, but I don't think that was a whole lot of fake in there.

やべっち 寿司 has a bunch up on YouTube as well, speaking of 99.

You know every time I try and think of something with women in it, I am reminded of the Bechtdel Test, and how enterntainment media fails it all the time. I am completely dependent in my day to day activities on the abilities of fully formed fully functional Japanese women who have fully formed, fully functional lives not the slightest bit centered around their dating lives.

And yet, if media representations were to be believed they simply do not exist. I watched 'Boss' about a women in charge of a police squad, and while it spent a good amount of time having her just be a police person, it also spent way too much time talking about the fact that she was not married and アラフォ (around forty year old).

BTW, I found 'Boss' from the actress appearing on やべっち 寿司 to advertise it, and cracking me up. It's a quick corner, where they set upa 屋台 selling sushi, and catch people walking to and from different sets, feed them and give them some sushi while let them do 番宣 (advertise their show, 番宣 =　番組宣伝). They get a bunch of international stars too. There's Tom Cruise on it in the first page of hits.

Edit: And 天海祐希 Amami Yuki is actually on that Tom Cruise clip.

Tom Cruise...That guy never ceases to amaze me He looked totally out of place lol Those clips were entertaining, though.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, kapalama. That was good bit of history right there. Hopefully all the binging that's about to take place will bring me up to speed with latest in the variety show scene.

Thanks to everyone who posted with suggestions. Much appreciated.

I listen to this one often:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nana...id73856970

Seems like chicks would dig it.

Thanks for asking. It made me go back and watch some 99, and get some giggles.

I spent some time asking around some target range Japanese women, and since they are Japanese people just looking for Japanese content, they just threw out what they were watching and two names came up, not that are not at all for studying women. But they are on YouTube:

ナカイの窓 (例):

奇跡体験!アンビリバボー (例):

Which shows how bad their taste is if nothing else. I think both of them log into Yahoo Japan, and then just click from there for their news and pop culture updates, and just look up stuff on YouTube.

Although the 中井君 show, like all his shows, has a range of free talk.

You would have had an easier time of this up until about 5 years ago. Most large cities with expat Japanese communities had video rental shops that bought licenses to tape Japanese broadcast TV and then ship it over to be rented. And they kept stuff going back quite a few years, to the point where people could watch shows from 10 years or more before. All of 学へ行こう, all 20 years of 北の国から, and more on point to this thread お水の花道.

But YouTube, and before that the various SlingTV boxes ran them out of business.