A star of Shōgun explains how the show’s period Japanese is different from today’s. Based on the novel by James Clavell, FX’s series takes viewers back to 1600s Japan for the epic tale of a clash of civilizations. The novel was previously adapted for television in the 1980s, but the new series prides itself on offering a sense of exacting period detail that was not featured in the earlier version.
Shōgun cast member Anna Sawai indeed offered an example of the show’s attention to detail during a recent Jimmy Kimmel Live! Appearance, explaining how the Japanese spoken on the series is much more formal and long-winded than the Japanese spoken in the modern day. Check out Sawai’s remarks below (around 2:00 of the clip):
I speak better Japanese, so yes, it is fluent. But in the show we speak period Japanese. So I had to do that and then do a sort of British accent. … So for instance, if it was, “Where’s the water? This is the water.” we would just say in modern language [a phrase in Japanese]. But it would become [a longer phrase in Japanese]. So it’s a lot more long.
More to come…
