The reason why Alya's Russian accent doesn't sound like proper Russian is because her accent is focused on sounding cute to Japanese ears
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
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Jul 24, 9:42 PM
#1
This was stated by Alya's VA, Uesaka Sumire, in an interview with animatetimes. Uesaka: It is an essential element of "Roshidere"......! We recorded Alya-san's Russian with an emphasis on "sounding cute". Alya's usual dialogues are rather harsh, so we tried to give a ticklishly gentle nuance to the Russian part. We are happy if the Russian sounds cute when you hear it with Japanese ears! Source |
Jul 24, 10:44 PM
#2
Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds. |
Jul 24, 11:09 PM
#3
PoisonedSandwich said: Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds. How a language sound is influenced by the perception of the people who speak it. |
spiritual successor of lord rothchild. |
Jul 24, 11:17 PM
#4
I don't know the source material, but why would she speak "propper" Russian? From what I got from the show so far she seemed to have spent a lot of her childhood in Japan? This is also such a small point for the production to pay attention to. 0.1% of the viewers will be able to understand if it's "propper". I'm just glad they went for Russian and not just Japanese but have the other characters pretend they don't understand. |
Jul 24, 11:19 PM
#5
And of course the fact that the voice actress isn't a native speaker also plays a part. Nothing wrong with that almost everyone has an accent when speaking a foreign language. But yes this is the same as when they get voice actors who are good at English and make them butcher their accent to sound better for the Japanese audience. |
MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
Jul 24, 11:22 PM
#6
Jul 24, 11:23 PM
#7
pielopelotta said: I don't know the source material, but why would she speak "propper" Russian? From what I got from the show so far she seemed to have spent a lot of her childhood in Japan? This is also such a small point for the production to pay attention to. 0.1% of the viewers will be able to understand if it's "propper". I'm just glad they went for Russian and not just Japanese but have the other characters pretend they don't understand. Alya hasn't lived in Japan for long, she's only lived in Japan for a few years, she spent most of her life in Russia |
Jul 24, 11:26 PM
#8
Piromysl said: I thought it's because Russian is not her native language. Even though it's not her native language, she speaks Russian much better in the other anime |
Jul 25, 12:35 AM
#9
OR MAYBE because the actual voice actress is japanese and before that role She did not know anything about russian language....No s**t Sherlock 👀 |
Feel pain, think about pain, accept pain, know pain... Shinra Tensei! |
Jul 25, 12:40 AM
#10
PastUchiha98 said: OR MAYBE because the actual voice actress is japanese and before that role She did not know anything about russian language....No s**t Sherlock 👀 bruh you don't know Uesaka Sumire? She majored russian language in college and can speak russian pretty well, not native level but at least not as bad as Alya. She also speaks better Russian in other anime |
Jul 25, 12:41 AM
#11
Yeah that makes a lot of sense, comparing her Voice acting for Alya vs Nonna from Girls und panzer, you can tell that it’s depending on the character that she’s playing because it’s a night and day difference. Nonna is more of her actual normal speaking (mainly because the character is kinda based of her). Also this video of her speaking Russian normally https://youtu.be/Miz-2qhJsF8?si=TFmdX19CC_BdMsgs |
Jul 25, 12:43 AM
#12
uhmm maybe i guess |
Jul 25, 12:58 AM
#13
NickTheNick said: uhmm maybe i guess now replace the first "N' with "L" and the second with "D" |
Jul 25, 1:25 AM
#14
Cielord said: PoisonedSandwich said: Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds. How a language sound is influenced by the perception of the people who speak it. just that I understand correctly: the way a language is perceived depends on how the listener views the people group that speak the language, or does it depend on how the speaker perceives their own language? It's not really clear the way you phrased it. |
Jul 25, 1:35 AM
#15
I do not speak Japanese or Russian. Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads. I read captions on both in this anime, so I’m rarely paying attention to how the Japanese or Russian sound. |
Jul 25, 1:38 AM
#16
Does it even really matter. Not watching this for a proper language learning course. |
Jul 25, 1:41 AM
#17
Reply to PoisonedSandwich
Cielord said:
How a language sound is influenced by the perception of the people who speak it.
PoisonedSandwich said:
Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds.
Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds.
How a language sound is influenced by the perception of the people who speak it.
just that I understand correctly: the way a language is perceived depends on how the listener views the people group that speak the language, or does it depend on how the speaker perceives their own language?
It's not really clear the way you phrased it.
@PoisonedSandwich Sorry for not phrasing it right. And the former. PoisonedSandwich said: the way a language is perceived depends on how the listener views the people group that speak the language Take that with a grain of salt though. As that just information I rememeber hearing from a TikTok linguist. |
spiritual successor of lord rothchild. |
Jul 25, 1:46 AM
#18
PoisonedSandwich said: In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh They only sound harsh if spoken by males, but hot if spoken by females. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Jul 25, 2:00 AM
#19
wouldn't have minded either way but ig Japanse people have a bit of a different perspective than the rest of the world (i dont mean it in a bad way) |
Jul 25, 2:10 AM
#20
ejleon said: I do not speak Japanese or Russian. Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads. I read captions on both in this anime, so I’m rarely paying attention to how the Japanese or Russian sound. same |
Jul 25, 3:11 AM
#21
ejleon said: I do not speak Japanese or Russian. Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads. I read captions on both in this anime, so I’m rarely paying attention to how the Japanese or Russian sound. It's not necessary to understand a language in order to get a feeling from hearing it. I don't understand most Japanese, yet their voice acts can make me cry and the same goes for other emotions. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Jul 25, 3:15 AM
#22
pielopelotta said: I don't know the source material, but why would she speak "propper" Russian? From what I got from the show so far she seemed to have spent a lot of her childhood in Japan? This is also such a small point for the production to pay attention to. 0.1% of the viewers will be able to understand if it's "propper". I'm just glad they went for Russian and not just Japanese but have the other characters pretend they don't understand. Her father is 100% Russian and barely speak any Japanese Yet the decision Japanese producers made about what Russian should sounds like in this Japanese anime aimed at Japanese men is pretty much logical. |
Jul 25, 3:28 AM
#23
As a non-native but experienced speaker of Japanese and non-speaker of Russian (though Roshidere did make me interested in learning it by showing Russian language in other ways than bastards spies) watching the anime without subtitles I have to say that was the perfect choice for an anime aimed at Japanese ears. Most of Alya lines in Japanese at the beginning do sound harsh and the intonation more filled with the "That filthy Masachika is disgusting" feeling than lovey-dovey so having her switch to a cute voice and intonation (So going for the archetypical JK cuteness) when speaking in Russian with the lines she says does lighten the atmosphere. (It wasn't a problem when reading the LN since in the LN we know what Alya thinks about mostly everything and that she doesn't mean to be cold or heinous but since that's the point of Alya's character to have a misunderstandig between what she thinks and what she conveys from the exterior it was nearly impossible to show Alya's complexity without going for boring monologues in the anime format. Harsh Japanese + soft Russian was probably the best way to adapt this complexity of her) |
Jul 25, 3:36 AM
#24
Cielord said: PoisonedSandwich said: Can't say I agree with that decision. In general I don't understand when people say slavic languages sound harsh... They actually have alot of soft sounds. How a language sound is influenced by the perception of the people who speak it. Only if you know what the language is. I don't know anything about Spanish, Mandarin or Thai so if you were to record these 3 language and make me listen to the recording then ask me what I feel by hearing them I wouldn't associate them to the people speaking them since I wouldn't even know which is which. |
Jul 25, 3:39 AM
#25
Reply to Zarutaku
ejleon said:
I do not speak Japanese or Russian.
Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads.
I read captions on both in this anime, so I’m rarely paying attention to how the Japanese or Russian sound.
I do not speak Japanese or Russian.
Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads.
I read captions on both in this anime, so I’m rarely paying attention to how the Japanese or Russian sound.
It's not necessary to understand a language in order to get a feeling from hearing it.
I don't understand most Japanese, yet their voice acts can make me cry and the same goes for other emotions.
@Zarutaku With all due respect, I suggest that in the further, you pay more attention to what people actually say, instead of ignoring their words written down. I clearly said that I read the captions and don't pay attention to the sound of the Japanese / Russian voices. So it makes no logical sense for you to respond as you did, because I admitted to not paying any attention to how the foreign voices sounded. This is not about what you can do, it is about what I can't do. If you want to think less of me, go ahead, I do not care, but don't turn my comment into your chance to boast about what you can do. |
Jul 25, 3:56 AM
#26
ShiroHachi said: This was stated by Alya's VA, Uesaka Sumire, in an interview with animatetimes. Uesaka: It is an essential element of "Roshidere"......! We recorded Alya-san's Russian with an emphasis on "sounding cute". Alya's usual dialogues are rather harsh, so we tried to give a ticklishly gentle nuance to the Russian part. We are happy if the Russian sounds cute when you hear it with Japanese ears! Source I like her Russian voice. And i think they made good decision. Of course they can't please everyone but for me, her Russian accent is very cute. |
Jul 25, 4:00 AM
#27
Reply to ejleon
@Zarutaku With all due respect, I suggest that in the further, you pay more attention to what people actually say, instead of ignoring their words written down.
I clearly said that I read the captions and don't pay attention to the sound of the Japanese / Russian voices.
So it makes no logical sense for you to respond as you did, because I admitted to not paying any attention to how the foreign voices sounded.
This is not about what you can do, it is about what I can't do.
If you want to think less of me, go ahead, I do not care, but don't turn my comment into your chance to boast about what you can do.
I clearly said that I read the captions and don't pay attention to the sound of the Japanese / Russian voices.
So it makes no logical sense for you to respond as you did, because I admitted to not paying any attention to how the foreign voices sounded.
This is not about what you can do, it is about what I can't do.
If you want to think less of me, go ahead, I do not care, but don't turn my comment into your chance to boast about what you can do.
I was referring to this sentence: ejleon said: so the response does make sense. What's confusing me is why you feel offended by a neutrally written reply and read bad faith assumptions into it.Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Jul 25, 4:01 AM
#28
Or they couldn't find a VA who can speak proper Russian and they're using this as an excuse...It's not like the Japanese are known for being good at foreign languages, they practically butcher any English voice. |
Jul 25, 4:34 AM
#29
Does anyone in the West even care? How many of us even speak more than 5 phrases in Russian anyway? |
Jul 25, 4:46 AM
#30
SimplyBrazen said: Or they couldn't find a VA who can speak proper Russian and they're using this as an excuse...It's not like the Japanese are known for being good at foreign languages, they practically butcher any English voice. Sumipe can actually speak proper Russian as this Russian speaking lady says it. https://youtube.com/shorts/zQAYrhC_Ymk?si=xbtotzP4fnvKSv8G However the same lady says Alya's Russian sounds Japanese. https://youtube.com/shorts/fhOKXGsz1RQ?si=xjaGelhHruP90K0j This for 2 reasons First : They wanted Alya to sounds Japanese. Second : Voice acting in a language and speaking a language are 2 different jobs and having took theater classes in the French speaking part of Belgium, learned Japanese and tried voice acting in Japan last summer I can tell you it's impossible to switch between speaking and acting without proper training. So the "they couldn't find a VA who..." thingy doesn't make sense. First because there are Russian native voice actresses in Japan and second because if they did took a Russian native that's the Japanese that would sound weird and unnatural. This wouldn't make any sense for the main target of this anime to have a girl mostly speaking in Japanese having a broken Japanese. Also before judging Sumipe's Russian please wait for Alya's speech (the one at the end of volume 3) this one has Russian in it (LN readers will know) and doesn't need Alya to be cute but serious so the Russian there might be hella good (Even more if Sumipe did train really hard before recording) |
Jul 25, 4:53 AM
#31
middle_pickup said: Does anyone in the West even care? How many of us even speak more than 5 phrases in Russian anyway? People in Latvia, Lettonia, Finland, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Belarus, Moldavia and some other countries with a Russian speaking diaspora but anyway pointing a Japanese rom-com to not be a good ressource to learn Russian is pointless. |
Jul 25, 7:36 AM
#32
Well, so it's just what I interpreted. Time to learn some Russian before going there this fall! |
"All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
Jul 25, 8:32 AM
#33
SimplyBrazen said: Or they couldn't find a VA who can speak proper Russian and they're using this as an excuse...It's not like the Japanese are known for being good at foreign languages, they practically butcher any English voice. What you just said makes no sense, there’s mainly 2 known voice actors that are known to speak fluent Russian: Sumire who is Japanese that can speak fluent Russian and Jenya Davidyuk who is Russian that speaks fluent Japanese (she lives in Japan). The problem is that Jenya wouldn’t exactly fit Alya’s character and she hasn’t voice acted since Zoya from Akiba Maid War. Also Alya’s character mainly speaks Japanese. A lot of Voice actors in general aren’t fluent in another language like that, they can speak a few words or sentences, but there is so many things that can affect how a person sounds. |
Jul 25, 9:14 AM
#34
Reply to Zarutaku
I was referring to this sentence:
ejleon said:
Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads.
so the response does make sense. What's confusing me is why you feel offended by a neutrally written reply and read bad faith assumptions into it.Whether or not her Japanese / Russian sounds cute probably goes right over US people’s heads.
@Zarutaku First, I was not offended, I was annoyed that you ignored my point, to talk about yourself. Second, I was pointing out a flaw in people in the US who do not appreciate good Japanese voice acting. Third, your response does not make any sense, because you are not correcting my statement by proving it false with evidence, you just talked in general about what can be done and then what you are able to do. |
Jul 25, 9:42 AM
#35
Reply to ejleon
@Zarutaku First, I was not offended, I was annoyed that you ignored my point, to talk about yourself. Second, I was pointing out a flaw in people in the US who do not appreciate good Japanese voice acting. Third, your response does not make any sense, because you are not correcting my statement by proving it false with evidence, you just talked in general about what can be done and then what you are able to do.
@ejleon Your sentence clearly implied that US people can't find a foreign voice cute if they don't understand the language, so I pointed out that isn't true and there was no need to provide any evidence because it's too obvious. Instead I just wrote an example in first person to make it more clear, not to "talk about myself" or "boast what I can do" lol. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Jul 25, 10:54 AM
#36
Zarutaku said: @ejleon Your sentence clearly implied that US people can't find a foreign voice cute if they don't understand the language, so I pointed out that isn't true and there was no need to provide any evidence because it's too obvious. Instead I just wrote an example in first person to make it more clear, not to "talk about myself" or "boast what I can do" lol. However I wonder if you really can pay attention to the voices when reading subtitles. I remember I started recognizing actors voice between animes when I started watching them in raw. Does it ever happen to you with actors not having a very peculiar voice such as Tomita Miyu, Ayane Sakura or Taketatsu Ayana? |
Jul 25, 11:09 AM
#37
It's too much of a hassle to delete posts on MAL, so this is staying I guess. |
Suprgamr123Jul 25, 11:14 AM
Jul 25, 11:10 AM
#38
It might sound cuter, but it's so forced. It makes kinda cringe everytime someone speaks in Russian. |
Jul 25, 11:13 AM
#39
pielopelotta said: I don't know the source material, but why would she speak "propper" Russian? From what I got from the show so far she seemed to have spent a lot of her childhood in Japan? This is also such a small point for the production to pay attention to. 0.1% of the viewers will be able to understand if it's "propper". I'm just glad they went for Russian and not just Japanese but have the other characters pretend they don't understand. First of all, she spent most of her childhood in Russia, second of all, it sounds really forced to even someone like me, who doesn't speak a lick of Russian. Also *proper. |
Jul 25, 11:17 AM
#40
Reply to DragyG
Zarutaku said:
@ejleon Your sentence clearly implied that US people can't find a foreign voice cute if they don't understand the language, so I pointed out that isn't true and there was no need to provide any evidence because it's too obvious. Instead I just wrote an example in first person to make it more clear, not to "talk about myself" or "boast what I can do" lol.
@ejleon Your sentence clearly implied that US people can't find a foreign voice cute if they don't understand the language, so I pointed out that isn't true and there was no need to provide any evidence because it's too obvious. Instead I just wrote an example in first person to make it more clear, not to "talk about myself" or "boast what I can do" lol.
However I wonder if you really can pay attention to the voices when reading subtitles. I remember I started recognizing actors voice between animes when I started watching them in raw.
Does it ever happen to you with actors not having a very peculiar voice such as Tomita Miyu, Ayane Sakura or Taketatsu Ayana?
DragyG said: Why not? Humans can process audible and visual information simultaneously, unless they have some kind of handicap.I wonder if you really can pay attention to the voices when reading subtitles. DragyG said: Pay attention to voices doesn't guarantee to recognize certain voice actors.I remember I started recognizing actors voice between animes when I started watching them in raw. Does it ever happen to you with actors not having a very peculiar voice such as Tomita Miyu, Ayane Sakura or Taketatsu Ayana? First of all, VAs often change their voices depending on what pitch is required in the show. Secondly, some of them don't have distinctive enough voices to easily distinguish them while watching casually. So yes, it often happens that I don't recognize same voice actors between different anime, I don't even know most of their names, which also hinders recognition. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Jul 25, 11:18 AM
#41
Zarutaku said: DragyG said: Why not? Humans can process audible and visual information simultaneously, unless they have some kind of handicap.I wonder if you really can pay attention to the voices when reading subtitles. DragyG said: Pay attention to voices doesn't guarantee to recognize certain voice actors.I remember I started recognizing actors voice between animes when I started watching them in raw. Does it ever happen to you with actors not having a very peculiar voice such as Tomita Miyu, Ayane Sakura or Taketatsu Ayana? First of all, VAs often change their voices depending on what pitch is required in the show. Secondly, some of them don't have distinctive enough voices to easily distinguish them while watching casually. So yes, it often happens that I don't recognize same voice actors between different anime, I don't even know most of their names, which also hinders recognition. Thanks for the insight |
Jul 25, 9:39 PM
#42
ShiroHachi said: This was stated by Alya's VA, Uesaka Sumire, in an interview with animatetimes. Uesaka: It is an essential element of "Roshidere"......! We recorded Alya-san's Russian with an emphasis on "sounding cute". Alya's usual dialogues are rather harsh, so we tried to give a ticklishly gentle nuance to the Russian part. We are happy if the Russian sounds cute when you hear it with Japanese ears! Source If you talk about accent Japanese voice actor's English accent is horrible in general with respect to British or American English accent. So I don't expect anything on Russia. |
Jul 25, 9:53 PM
#43
ANIk_003 said: ShiroHachi said: This was stated by Alya's VA, Uesaka Sumire, in an interview with animatetimes. Uesaka: It is an essential element of "Roshidere"......! We recorded Alya-san's Russian with an emphasis on "sounding cute". Alya's usual dialogues are rather harsh, so we tried to give a ticklishly gentle nuance to the Russian part. We are happy if the Russian sounds cute when you hear it with Japanese ears! Source If you talk about accent Japanese voice actor's English accent is horrible in general with respect to British or American English accent. So I don't expect anything on Russia. If this was another JP voice actress maybe no one would care, but they chose Sumippe, we expected better because of her history |
Jul 26, 1:25 PM
#44
PastUchiha98 said: OR MAYBE because the actual voice actress is japanese and before that role She did not know anything about russian language....No s**t Sherlock 👀 homie go look up sumire uesaka, she deadass studied russian at university sophia for 4 years, she even spoke with a russian native speaker iirc |
Jul 26, 6:46 PM
#45
Nah, she simply isn't fluent. Her Russian in Tank und Panzer as Nonna also sounds broken compared to Klara, who was voiced by a native Russian. It's not something that's so out of the ordinary, though, as many Japanese people living in the West sound more or less like this because they learned the other language based on katakana rather than the alphabet of that language. For instance, instead of pronouncing "the world" as "ðə wərld," they might say "za warudo." |
WoodmannJul 26, 7:36 PM
Jul 26, 6:56 PM
#46
That was my first thought after hearing Alya's accent at first. I was familiar with the tact that her voice actress speaks Russian, so I thought that perhaps it sounded wacky due to forced "cute sounding" voice manner. However, the more I watched this show, the more I doubted that was the case. Russian already sounds pleasant to one's ear, so the decision of making Alya sound "kawaii" was weird and resulted in Alya sounding as if she actually couldn't speak Russian, lol. Even simple phrases sounded weird, as if Alya didn't care about proper accents, or wasn't aware of them in the first place. |
Jul 27, 1:05 AM
#47
damn if they thought russian was unfit for japanese ears, why'd they even make the show? it also reminds me of when users on MAL say they won't watch Chinese anime because "they don't like the sound of chinese". it's all so stupid to me |
Aug 3, 7:12 PM
#48
Reply to Kaikaidou
damn if they thought russian was unfit for japanese ears, why'd they even make the show? it also reminds me of when users on MAL say they won't watch Chinese anime because "they don't like the sound of chinese". it's all so stupid to me
@Kaikaidou I agree. Even the argument that "This wouldn't make any sense for the main target of this anime to have a girl mostly speaking in Japanese having a broken Japanese" can't convince me because what's the point of having an immigrant character then? "Focusing on sounding cute to Japanese ears" is like fetishizing the image, transforming it into a pleasant fantasy. I mean ok it's an industry for those who enjoy this, but as for me, I didn't appreciate it at all, it's super cringey. And I wouldn't like this approach no matter what culture, country, or media. |
Aug 4, 3:47 PM
#49
It might sound cute for Japanese ears but for my Russian ears it sounds horrible. It is not just accent - it is barely understandable. What supposed to be the main selling point is anime, puts me off. Just imagine if she was saying the same in English, the whole premise would sound weird. It's a drop for me. |
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