Coming soon: Kansai-ben of the Day

Kansai-ben of the Day is a small app that teaches you one Osaka and Kansai dialect phrase a day, from the polite to the downright rude. Each phrase comes with its reading in kana, its standard-Japanese equivalent, its English meaning, an everyday example, a yakuza-movie example, and a note on who says it and when not to.

なんでやねん (casual): Why on earth?! Oh, come on!

「財布忘れたから、お昼おごってくれへん?」「なんでやねん!」

Every phrase is labeled polite, casual, rough, or rude, so you know who you can say it to. There are sixty, all hand-written, one a day, and then the cycle starts over. A widget puts today's phrase on the Home Screen, the Lock Screen, the Mac's desktop, and Notification Center; complications put it on the Apple Watch face; 関 in the Mac's menu bar shows it too; and your device's Japanese voice reads it aloud.

It collects nothing, and it works offline.

It's made by Pragmaphilia Labs: Miss Sakamoto, creator and project lead (and our Lab Director); John Mifsud, executive producer; and Tamamo, language consultant. Two honest notes. The phrases were written by Miss Sakamoto, not by a native speaker, so a native Kansai speaker should check every entry before it ships. And the device's voices speak standard Tokyo intonation: the readings are right, but the Kansai music isn't.

Status: in development, for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. No release date yet; when it ships, it will be announced here and in What's Cooking.