"What type of girl do you like?"

When I'm asked this, the first thing I recall is her voice, and then her way of talking.

When I meet a girl, there are two places that I pay special attention to first off. On the upper body, I look to see if her face is the type that I like, and then I move to the line of her body, in that order.

When I close my eyes, I can still hear her voice. Even if we don't come into contact again, the best impression I have of her is her voice.

Following that, I listen to the girl's way of speaking along with her voice. If you talk about it in terms of music, the topics that she speaks about are the lyrics, her way of speaking is the rhythm and the melody, and her voice is the instrument that performs all of these.

In the long run, the fact that a girl's voice is pretty isn't the only important thing.

If a girl's voice and way of talking give me a good impression, then I will think "Ah, this girl is really great."

Even if a girl's face is pretty, there are times when hearing her voice is a big letdown and I just feel as if I am being pushed away.

I probably have a "speech fetish."

Words that I can't accept psychologically are "I'm hungry" spoken in masculine speech [trans note: 腹減った"harahetta", 飯"meshi", and 食った"kutta" – the last two are usually used in the same phrase 飯を食う"meshi o kuu" – which are the three examples Gackt gives, all mean "I'm hungry," but are generally masculine forms of speech and never spoken by women]. If a girl says things of that kind, it's not acceptable [lit: dame]. It's just like as if she had said "I'm going to pick my nose with my pen." I get really annoyed.

Japan is one of the few countries in the world that differentiates between masculine speech and feminine speech.

Thinking that Japanese girls are cool means that you should include that background and history, and it is something unshakeable that girls must always protect.

Because of this, I prefer girls who learn the feminine way of speaking.

In spite of the fact that there are words that are that important, there are girls who speak not caring if they sound masculine or feminine, and that really disappoints me.

The really important thing that makes a woman speak like a woman doesn't have anything to do with culture, but this point is ignored.

Though women have the strongest weapons to allow them to express themselves, they don't use them.

The pivotal point is that it's as if they've renounced being female…

That's what it seems like to me. I really really hate that. That's the worst. Because of that, their way of speaking is extremely noisy to me.

For example, ten women gather at one place with their boyfriends to have a good time. Without fail, the first one to leave and go home is always me.

The other guys aren't bothered by this, but I can't stand it.

"Chou bikkuriii~!" [That's so surprising~!]

"Te iu ka~ Terebi to chou issho~" [Oh yeah? With the TV~" note: not quite sure how to translate this]

"Kore tte, chou oishikunaa~?" [Isn't this delicious?"]

Stretching out their inflection or inflecting their voices really high, the word "chou" flutters about. When I'm in that kind of environment, I feel very ill at ease.

Of course, that word is also a part of their culture. However, to me, that part of the culture has never been pleasant.

"Kawannai te yuu ka~" [You say you haven't changed, huh?"]

That is no good. Truly, a girl that talks like that hasn't learned to speak.

Now, I myself had a horrible way of speaking in the past.

When I spoke Kansai-ben, my way of speaking was very rough. Even now, when I get angry, I sometimes lapse into Kansai-ben. But speaking like that is really no good. Mostly, those words are just too dirty…

My parents probably had an effect on me too. The way my parents spoke was very strictly.

When I was a child, I had to move often because of my father's job, and we lived in many different cities. Okinawa, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Shiga, Osaka, Kyoto…Wherever we went, because my parents spoke standard Japanese, that's what I spoke at home. Even when we lived in Kyoto, I spoke that. The only place I used Kansai-ben was when I wasn't at home.

I think that while speaking different dialects outside the home, I have felt this since I was a small child.

The impression that I gave my friends came from my speech.

With just one word, you can give someone the impression that you are stupid, or you can also make them think "What is up with this guy?" You can also have to opportunity to make people think "This boy is going to make something of himself when he grows up." A person's way of speaking is packed with important indications.

When I write lyrics, being concerned about the beauty of the Japanese language, my consciousness of beauty confronting my way of speaking and the words that I choose is something that has a great effect, I think.

As for me, because I want to express my own feelings, I write lyrics. To me, this feeling of "I want to let people know my feelings" is the most important thing above anything else.

Feelings expressed with dirty words and a dirty way of speaking, after all, are felt as dirty. If I am going to express my true feelings, I want to do it with beautiful words.

When I went overseas, I thought that I wanted to use the words and language of the country I was in to the best of my ability.

Once, I was learning to speak French, but now I can only remember pick-up lines.

Lately, I've been studying Chinese. Now I can pick up women in Chinese. Four years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Taiwan.

When I would tell French girls something, my interpreter would translate. At that time, I had a feeling that he was warping my words to change the meaning to something that wasn't correct.

Even if the words had the correct meaning, I still couldn't convey the nuances of my speech. Having a "speech fetish," I can't let things like that go.

From then on, I started reading Chinese conversational grammar books.

I've been chiefly reading self-study books. When I don't know the meaning of something, I ask my Chinese of Taiwanese friends, and most every day, I read my Chinese books.

But being able to participate in everyday conversation and being able to express my feelings [lit: play catchball with feelings] are on two entirely different levels. Getting to that level, having a strong vocabulary is definitely still not enough. I had to find a way to memorize about 20,000 words.

To me, who is thinking of expanding into Asia, getting so excited about Chinese [lit: falling into a fever with Chinese] was something spontaneous.

Still, though I am from Asia, in my music, no matter what I say, I will most likely do it in Japanese. Though I love Chinese, above all else, I love the beauty of Japanese.

Also, all of you speak the Japanese that I love so much. I want you to speak it as beautifully as you can. I ask this from my heart.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
Though I cannot lecture Gackt on his hatred of Kansai-ben, I do wonder if he chances to speak it with Hyde when he's angry at him XD Since he does say he lapses into it sometimes when he's pissed off.

As I am still learning Japanese myself, I have yet to completely understand all the nuances of Japanese colloquial speech, but the differences between male and female speech in the language is one of the largest differences from any other language I've ever studied (and I've studied quite a lot). Male speech also tends to be more "slurred," which is why a lot of students of Japanese have a hard time understand Japanese men when they talk (and why I complain a lot when I'm watching dramas because the male characters talk too fast).

Gackt should not be complaining about inflection, though. Japanese is all about inflection, but when Gackt talks, his speech is almost completely flat and he talks so softly that no one can hear what he is saying. I know I'm not the only one that is bothered by this, as the Heyx3 Music Champ hosts make fun of Gackt for it almost every single time he comes on the show. It makes me feel better that I'm not the only one who can't hear what Gackt is saying.

Also, I'm glad Gackt loves the beauty of Japanese, but someone should tell him there is more to Japanese than "dakishimete."

There were 3 DA GA's in this chapter, and I have no idea why Gackt didn't just name the chapter something like "My Likes and Dislikes of Japanese and Other Languages" since the whole thing wanders from one topic to the next and the only thing tying it together is the topic of languages.

Now I am done making fun of Gackt XD

[edit] In reading the comments, I see a lot of people aren't aware of the large difference between masculine and feminine speech in Japanese. I went and found a link for you all if you're interested.

Gender differences in Japanese

There are a couple things on that page I want to address. First, about personal pronouns that mean "I," I've noticed a general trend (at least in standard Japanese, "Hyoujungo" 「標準語」, which is spoken in Kanto/Tokyo where I live) in the general feminization of the pronoun "boku." Boku used to be an exclusive male pronoun, but a lot of teenage girls/women in their early 20s are now using boku instead of the traditional female pronoun "atashi". You'll find this especially in most of the jpop coming out nowadays from female singers, though that might also have to do with the fact that boku has 2 syllables and atashi has 3.

The second thing is that feminine sentence ending particle "wa" seems to be used only by older women (I guess it is a general trend towards married women using it). Younger women seem not to be very fond of it. Again this is in the Tokyo area, so I can't speak for any of the other areas and dialects of Japan.

Hope that page helps.

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