Hi Everyone! 
First things first, excuse the pun in the title. 
As some of you may have guessed, this post is about Kansaiben… Which we just released!
You can find the Kansaiben deck here: 関西弁 [Grammar & Vocab]
This is Bunpro’s first dive into grammatical uncharted waters, and we’d like to give you a rundown of our approach.
Size and Scope
Kansaiben is considerably smaller than our standard grammar pathways. Coming in at just 21 grammar points (for now), we have included the core structures of the dialect, but also left a bit of room for growth in the future. By the end of the course, you should be able to recognize most of the classic Kansai grammar patterns, and have a better understanding of how they interact with/replace standard Japanese grammar.
In addition to this we have also added vocabulary commonly used in the Kansai region, as this is something that goes hand-in-hand with the grammar. The vocabulary list consists of about 30 words, with some appearing so frequently that they could almost considered grammar structures themselves.
We actually plan to add more Kansaiben grammar points and vocab in the future, and make further distinctions between structures that will appear in Osaka, vs what you might hear in Kyoto, etc.
How Reliable Is It?
We gathered all of our information from a range of sources, but primarily focused on university oriented teaching material that specifically taught Kansai-Ben. In addition to this, we happen to have super secret access to a few Kansai natives at our disposal, so this made the process a lot easier!
We are very confident in the initial lessons that we have constructed, and have put them together in a way that builds upon and makes references to standard Japanese.
What Is the Difficulty Level?
Due to the degree to which we reference standard Japanese in our explanations of Kansaiben, it is recommended that students have a fairly strong grasp of at least N4 level content in standard Japanese, before they try to tackle Kansaiben. In saying that, most of the grammar points are still fairly accessible to students that have only just finished N5.
Making references to standard Japanese is something that we have done mainly out of necessity, as many forms that appear in Kansaiben derive from standard Japanese structures, and cannot be found in run-of-the-mill dictionaries.
What Does This Open the Door For?
While we still have plenty of grammar points that we would like to add to the website that are not from dialects, implementing Kansaiben is definitely a stepping stone toward adding other dialects as well.
As of right now, we have no 100% decision for which dialect will come next, but we will try to base our decisions largely around what users want, and also how big/varied certain dialects are from others.
For those that would like to give it a crack, we would love to hear feedback on the new Kansaiben content, and how you guys think we can improve upon or change the way we tackle dialects in the future!
As always, thanks for the ongoing support, and we hope you all have a fantastic week ahead!
Thanks for this great addition!!!
