fukuoka be ni tsuite

[Josh_]

ohayoo minasan. josh desu.

i'm planning to go to fukuoka city, and yesterday i was a little disheartened to learn that they have their own dialect. i was just wondering if this means that all my hard work learning japanese has basically been for nothing if i want to live in fukuoka. how different are the dialects to the main language? does anyone speak fukuoka ben?
im going to do a jap language course there for the first 2 or 3 months (where ill be speaking mainstream japanese), and i was thinking maybe i could just stay in fukuoka for 6 months or so, learn a little bit of fukuoka ben, and then move on somewhere else.

i dont know what to do. can anyone help?

arigatou. josh.

[jaypunkrawk]

Hey...I'm Josh too! My only tip is to not use the term "Jap". I'm sure people in Fukuoka would understand standard Japanese...now you understanding their dialect is a different story.

[Bucko]

Nah you've got nothing to worry about. Everyone in Japan understands "standard" Japanese because that's what they get on TV, it's what store clerks use etc. I lived in Osaka for almost two years which also has its own dialect, and I had no problem communicating with people in textbook/Tokyo style language. They will make fun of you for using it sometimes though.