Japanese Study: Japanese Colloquilism

Mix and Contraction of Words Changes the Way They Sound


From Japanese Listening - Final Fantasy XIII Chapter 2 Video Clip
Time: 0:25~0:37

Gadaoh:
"Arya (>are wa)" shibaraku kakaru na. Nora no mise ga hanjo suru no wa "arigatee (>arigatai)" ga, dono kyaku mo hanashi ga "negee (>nagai)" ue ni, uchi no taisho to kitara aiso dake wa ii n dakara.

In casual or rough spoken conversations, the sound of words may be mixed together and shortened, as you can tell with the words above. Mostly men speak in this way but in modern times even women sometimes resort to a casual, laid back conversation style.

Edo is the period from 1603~1868, which is named after the capital of the government of the era. This way of pronouncing words is originally the native tongue of Edo (modern day Tokyo) people.

In the clip:
aryaa = are wa (that is)
arigatee = arigatai (thankful)
nagee = nagai (long)

Other examples:
koryaa = kore wa (this is)
mitee = mitai (want to see)
umee = umai (well, good, delicious)
sugee = sugoi (great)
koee = kowai (scarely)

You can find lots of examples of this type of casual spoken conversation but not that many in written form (except for written scripts depicting verbal dialogues).